


Someplace That is Green

by mugsandpugs



Series: Dad Logan [3]
Category: X-Men Evolution
Genre: Birdwatching, Cabin Fic, Canon Disabled Character, Canon Jewish Character, Domestic, Dreams and Nightmares, Fluff and Angst, Forgiveness, Gardens & Gardening, Healing, M/M, One Shot, Original Character(s), Painting, Redemption, Telepathic Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-08 15:21:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18625927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mugsandpugs/pseuds/mugsandpugs
Summary: The only thing left is to meet halfway and stand on equal ground. Come; someplace that is green, and I will find you. Perhaps, at long last, we can have peace.Or, two tired old enemies spend several years healing in a barn by the woods.





	Someplace That is Green

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [Peables](https://archiveofourown.org/users/peables/pseuds/peables) for doing some Polish editing/"Polish picking" and answering my questions for this, and to [Nemhaine42](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemhaine42/pseuds/Nemhaine42) for doing some beta reading and teaching me about European gardening.
> 
> Warning for several disturbing nightmare sequences that are quickly resolved. Additional warning for some mentions/discussion of the Holocaust and victims of it.

* * *

**Day 1**

Erik Lehnsherr had anticipated tension. Maybe a full-blown attack. Everything about this situation — this, meeting Charles halfway; this, over-romanticized ‘green place’ foolishness — all screamed ‘trap’ to the most renowned terrorist humankind had ever known.

Yet still he came; his coat folded over the back of his chair and his luggage by his side. With his hat pulled low and his sunglasses in place, nobody in the bustling station looked twice at the great and terrible Magneto. To the average Berlin citizen, Erik was just another well-dressed gentleman, sipping an overpriced coffee from a tiny mug and awaiting a train.

 _Fool,_ he chastised himself. _Fool!_ He was leading himself to ruin. And for what?! Because his spoiled son had chosen a soft life of comfort over the war for his species? In these circumstances, Erik was behaving even _worse_ than Pietro. At least Pietro had a concrete goal in mind. What was Erik accomplishing by this surrender?!

The spoon he’d used to stir his coffee clattered on the table, spattering drops onto his newspaper. Erik huffed an irritated sigh, clapping his good hand down on the utensil. He was no better than a teenager, unable to even control his powers.

“Oh come now, you’re not _so_ bad.”

The voice behind him was smooth in familiarity; even amused. Erik narrowed his eyes as Charles Xavier guided his wheelchair through the crowd towards Erik’s table. He carried a bag in his lap and a second tucked beneath his chair and was dressed, embarrassingly, like a tourist.

“Not even pretending to blend in, I see,” Erik grumbled, referring to Charles’s obnoxious tendency to use his mind-reading abilities whenever the opportunity presented itself. Magneto, unable to wear his iconic helmet in public while attempting to remain incognito, was vulnerable to mental probing from his former lover and all-time enemy.

Charles deliberately misunderstood the criticism. “Oh, yes, I’m sticking to English,” he nodded, and moved an empty chair aside to settle himself into its place. “Not all of us are gifted with tongues, old friend. I tried to order chocolate biscuits from a girl at a stand just now, and she glared at me like my German had offended her mother.” Charles stopped to think. “Perhaps it did, actually. They pronounce it ‘gehirnverweigerer’, correct?”

“If you struggle this much with German,” Erik retorted, refusing to be charmed by Charles’s poor attempt at comedy. “I imagine you’ll have a beast of a time in Poland.”

“Nonsense.” Charles waved him off like a pesky fly. “Polish is just German spoken in cursive.”

At this, Erik snorted. Just a little, though he knew better than to encourage Charles. Charles smiled like the cat who’d got the cream, and braced his elbows on the table, regarding his companion through long lashes.

Long lashes that Erik was absolutely _not_ going to notice while his brain, his thoughts, remained vulnerable, thank you very much. Nor Charles’s high, arched cheekbones, fair skin, or bright smile.

He instead focused on Charles’s bald head and unprotected ears. Though it was late in spring, there was a chill in the air. Charles should have been wearing a hat.

“Oh, old _friend_ ,” that infuriating smile only grew, and his deep blue eyes twinkled mischievously. “I didn’t know you still cared.”

###

It was a seven-hour journey from Berlin to Warsaw. Charles paid for a private compartment. Between Charles’s family inheritance and Erik’s reclaimed nazi gold, the two of them might have been wealthier than God himself.

Erik was thankful. He had conducted most of his work in isolation. There had been months at a time spent locked in a single room, pouring over hieroglyphs while one of his Acolytes occasionally brought him a sandwich, or a bottled water, or news about his children. He’d become quite the recluse, and crowds now made him anxious.

“One wonders who’s watching your brood while you’re shacking up with me,” Erik said, and perhaps he sounded cranky now. Perhaps he _was_ cranky. Well, Charles already knew he was bad-tempered when he’d insisted upon these new arrangements. He knew who — what — Erik was. If he expected a grand transformation into a well-adjusted individual, he could damn well think again!

“I’ve put Ororo in charge of my mansion and students,” Charles replied, not bothered in the slightest by Erik’s tone. “And Hank McCoy acts as her second in command. Logan is resuming his teaching position—”

“I thought Logan was supposed to be watching _my_ Brotherhood,” Erik interrupted, seizing a topic on which to vent his bad mood. _“He_ wanted them!”

“And he _is_ watching them, old friend. They’re all staying in the same place for a while. Being around others of their own kind is good for them.”

Erik could think of no further argument, so he just grumbled himself into a black mood, scowling as Charles disappeared behind a paperback novel.

The compartment came with a complimentary basket of snacks and beverages. Erik prodded through the wrapped cheeses and sausages until he found an apple, then a bottled water. Charles surreptitiously watched as he uncapped a pill bottle from his bag, swallowing antibiotics down with his snack.

“How’s your arm?” Charles asked when he noticed himself being noticed.

In answer, Erik slid the appendage from its sling, the metal buttons of his sleeve unclasping themselves. He showed Charles the gauze, the bandaging over three thick claw marks in the corded muscle he now had to flush with medicated saline multiple times per day. It was a miracle he hadn’t lost the arm entirely.

It was a grisly sight. Charles, a priss, wrinkled his nose.

“Your dog is protective,” Erik said as he hid his arm once more beneath sleeve and within sling.

Charles shook his head, gazing out the compartment window at the rapid passage of Berlin. “Logan is not ‘my’ dog. Logan doesn’t belong to anyone save, perhaps, to children.”

“All children?”

“I think so, yes.”

Erik contemplated this as he rolled the core of his apple around in his good hand. He couldn’t help but resent the uncouth, loudmouthed mutant who’d stolen his Brotherhood. Who had corrupted his offspring. Did Pietro truly feel that such a man ‘loved’ him, while Erik, his own father, did not?

“He loves them fiercely,” Charles said, again grabbing Erik’s attention. His expression was stern: he believed this with a surety. “He will, long after we are gone. He will, long after _they_ are gone.”

Again, this gave Erik pause. Logan was a quasi-immortal mutant. No doubt he’d seen many children age and wither and, eventually, die. Erik, at seventy-three years old, felt world weary when he thought about all the death he’d witnessed in his lifespan. It had forced him to frost and harden his heart just to survive the pain, yet this man _deliberately_ found others to love, again and again? Why was he setting himself up for such constant, debilitating heartbreak?

“I suppose if someone _must_ steal my children,” Erik sneered bitterly. “It might as well be Saint Logan.”

Charles sighed, already looking tired, and leaned his head against the window for the rest of their journey.

###

It was more difficult than it should have been, hailing a cab from Warsaw to Lubusz. Most drivers took one glance at Charles’s wheelchair and pounded their heel into the gas pedal. Erik felt himself becoming angrier by the second.

“It is _easy_ to strap your chair onto the roof,” he snarled. “I should report them for... For poorly representing their company’s standards!”

Charles gave a small incline of his head. “I’m used to it,” he murmured.

“No, you’re not! Ororo drives you everywhere. This was a mistake. Why did you bring me here, Charles? You’ll hate this. You’ll resent me, and I really do not see the point of—”

**Please don’t get upset, Erik. It’s alright.**

Charles’s voice in his head had him falling still. Charles looked at him for a long minute, then reached for his hand. Erik pulled away instantly, and didn’t look at Charles again, fearing that he might see pain, or worse — _pity_ — in his expression.

Eventually a cab stopped for them. Erik spoke to the human driver in clipped Polish, giving directions and promising that yes, they had the money to cover a fare so large.

Erik held Charles’s chair as the other man levered himself into the backseat, then folded and strapped it to the roof. It did not escape his attention that Charles’s chair was made entirely of high-quality plastic and rubber and leather, without so much as a single metal screw to be found. He considered sitting up front by the cabbie, if only so Charles wouldn’t try to touch him again, but his anxiety wouldn’t allow it. He had to be beside Charles or he’d end up doing something regrettable.

Charles was examining a map of the Wielkopolska region; their destination marked in pencil. The sight made something swoop sickly in Erik’s stomach. “I know that area,” he breathed. “Did you mean to rent land so close to where—” _where I raised my children? Where Magda died?_

Charles’s eyes went wide. “Did I really? Oh, I didn’t mean… It’s only that there were so few furnished places for sale with a wheelchair-accessible bath already installed. I can buy us a new home soon, if this will be a problem—”

He was so earnest that Erik held up a hand to silence him. “It’s fine. It’s not _that_ close. Don’t worry so much.” It wasn’t like this would last long, anyway. It would end in disaster, and then Erik would get to point in Charles’s face and insist _I told you so! I told you that men like us don’t get to have peace!_

Sensing his mood, Charles tiptoed his cautious way back into Erik’s mind.

 **You know,** he informed Erik conversationally. **People in wheelchairs** **_can_ ** **drive. Don’t assume we need help!**

He shared mental flashes of specialty cars with hand controls in place of pedals, and hooks instead of seats to keep a wheelchair clamped in place. It was rather ingenious technology, and Charles could certainly afford to buy such a model if he so desired.

_Don’t lie, Charles. You never learned to drive._

**Why drive when you can fly?**

This time the mental images Charles projected were much clearer, showcasing true memories rather than just pictures from some book or infomercial. He saw Charles piloting the Blackbird using a similar technology to the wheelchair-accessible car.

Trust this man to always live in the clouds, while everybody else was merely getting by on earth. Erik shook his head, but even as he rolled his eyes he couldn’t quell a curl of fondness for the ridiculous dandy. Charles was as he’d always been, and enemies or not, it was near-impossible not to enjoy his company to some extent.

###

The bare bones of a barn at the mouth of the woods was, upon first glance, idyllic. On second glance, however, one noticed the chipped paint; the rotting deck, the weed-filled garden and broken mailbox. Some upper windows had been broken and covered with cardboard. Nobody had lived here in a long, long time.

“Are you sure this is the place?” the cabbie asked dubiously. Without thinking, Erik mentally translated his words to English for Charles’s benefit — then flushed. Some old habits died hard.

“It is,” he said gruffly, to make up for the momentary softness. It wasn’t like he wanted to _encourage_ Charles to lurk in his mind. The moment they were alone, he would don his helmet, and...

And _what?_ Wear it indefinitely? Keep Charles out forever, when inviting him in still felt like the most natural thing in the world?

“Okay, I guess,” the cabbie shrugged, accepting his fare, and left them to their new home. This time, Erik did not translate.

The two mutants regarded the house, and the steps that led to the front door. Though there _was_ a ramp, it was all crumbly concrete, weathered by frequent Polish rains, likely to catch on wheel treads.

There was also a drainpipe, covered in rust, that ran down the side of the barn. It was nothing to warp that into liquid, which slithered and ran and hardened atop of the ramp, smothering the weeds and dandelions that grew in the cracks to form a perfectly smooth surface on which to travel.

Charles fixed Erik with a Look. There was no need to communicate further; Erik read him like a book. Charles did not feel safe relying on Erik’s metal manipulation.

“Would you prefer I carry you?” Erik asked icily, knowing how much his ex-lover hated to be carried anywhere. “Or perhaps you’d like to stay out here all night? The world is full of metal, Charles. People have tried to keep me away from it before. It’s never ended well for them.”

Charles sighed, sounding so long-suffering that Erik grit his teeth. If this was such a problem for him, then why had he wanted to come out here in the first place?!

“This was your idea,” he reminded Charles, and walked up the steps on his own without bothering to take the key. He instead manipulated the metal tumblers of the lock until the front door opened on its own. “When you get sick of it, don’t blame me.”

It was so dusty and musty inside that Erik struggled not to cough. Grateful that it wasn’t raining, he circled the large main room and opened all the windows, looking at the sheets that protected the furniture, and tested the light-switches. Charles had apparently paid enough for electricity, at least, as all the lamps and overhead lights still functioned.

Crossing to the kitchen to test the taps proved that the water had been switched on, too, though it ran red through the rusty pipes. Erik left them on. This felt a lot like setting up a safe house with his Acolytes, though for once it was all perfectly legal. Erik had spent so long squatting, abusing his powers to steal the city’s resources, that doing _anything_ within the confines of the law felt strange.

He found utensils and cookware and appliances, all boxed away, and busied himself freeing the essentials. When the real-estate agent had called this barn ‘furnished,’ they meant it.

Evidently Charles had decided that using the metal-covered ramp was preferable to remaining alone in the darkened woods, because he peered around the doorway at Erik, watching curiously. “I’ve brought food,” he said, the note in his tone suggesting he hoped their spat had ended. He indicated the bag in his lap. “Until we can go to town for groceries. I’ll make us some dinner?”

He directed his chair towards the stove. Erik quickly stopped him, opening the oven door to peer inside first. It was empty, so he stepped aside and allowed Charles access. Catching a glimpse at his thoughts, Charles balked. “ _Cats_?! Really?”

“Ferals get cold in the winter,” Erik shrugged. “Abandoned buildings like this are ideal for them to breed. Trust me; you only need to have broiled one kitten to remember it forever.”

Charles grimaced, looking sick at the graphic memory. Erik was not moved. Charles’s childhood home had been neglectful; abusive, even, but with that silver spoon in his mouth he’d never had to feed himself. When one spent their formative years in luxury, they always turned up their noses at the gritty reality of common life.

“Stop that,” Charles snapped. “Stop thinking I’ll give up on this. Yes, it will take time to adjust, but I think we need this, Erik. We need time apart from the world to heal. And you must agree, because you’re _here_ , aren’t you?”

Erik grunted. The water now ran clear, so he shut the taps at the sink off, then left Charles to his tinkering, tromping down the long hallway and surpassing the staircase to focus on the ground floor.

They had indeed made the bathroom for a handicapped resident, and Erik got those taps running, too, flushing the toilet several times. The wall-mounted grab bars felt a little loose under his hands, and required a tweak of magnetism before they held firm.

The bedroom was much the same. Erik opened the window, pulled the plastic covering from the mattress, and flipped the whole thing over, allowing it to breathe. There were linens in a plastic tub in the wardrobe, so Charles could make the bed up later. He checked every drawer for rats, found none, and nodded in satisfaction. Charles should be warm in here, at least.

Returning to the hallway for his luggage, he at last ascended the stairs to do the same with his own quarters.

“Erik, there’s a fireplace!” Charles called happily, amusing himself by circling the open dining room. “And paintings in the closet — we must hang them up soon; the plain walls are so _dreary_ . And... Oh, _my —_ some of these are rather rude!”

He sent a mental projection of several unfortunate nudes. Without meaning to, Erik laughed aloud, the sound alien to his own ears. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed. It must have been years.

###

Erik dreamed on that first night, in the drafty upstairs bedroom with its wooden bed under a patchwork quilt. He’d been dreaming a lot lately. He blamed the medication.

Wanda was there, small; perhaps four or five years old. Her thick, dark hair had been tied in a bunch with a red ribbon, and her knees beneath her dress were muddied and scabbed from playing too roughly outside.

When she saw her father watching, she turned to face him with her hands cupped before her, no doubt holding some worm or frog she’d found by the river. Once, she’d brought him a naked baby bird; a tiny warbler chick with a broken neck. She’d demanded he fix it and, when he’d been unable to do so, had thrown a tantrum so epic it’d nearly burned the house down.

“Tatuś! _Tatuś_!” she cried, running, and he bent at the waist, hands on his knees, to match her height.

“What have you got there, tygrysku?” he asked, and she giggled, holding her hands up and spreading her fingers wide for him to see.

In her sticky red palms lay a human heart, warped and blackened, far smaller than it should have been. It was as though it had been shriveled by fire or some horrible disease. Its four chambers pulsed feebly, starving for blood, for oxygen.

Erik recoiled in disgust, resisting the urge to slap the horrid thing out of his daughter’s hands. “Where did you get that?!” he demanded harshly, wondering which poor fool his daughter had slaughtered. Would he have time to destroy the evidence before the authorities came to lock her away in a tiny box with barbed wire for walls, screaming and pleading for her _tatuś_ to save her as those around her went up in smoke?

“But it’s yours,” Wanda protested, confused and hurt by her father’s rejection. “It is _your_ heart, tatuś. I was only holding onto it for you.”

When Erik looked again, he saw that she was no longer Wanda at all, but Magda; plump and dark with their son’s fine features. She fixed her lover with a stern frown; reaching to touch Erik’s chest with a bloodied palm.

“What happened to your heart, Erik?” Magda asked accusingly, and Erik woke, panting, the organ in his chest pounding fit to break his ribs.

He forced himself to breathe, to count to twenty, a hundred, _two_ hundred, before he again found his composure. Then he rolled onto his side and drifted off, and did not dream again that night.

* * *

**Day 2**

Aside from Ororo, Erik was Charles’s favorite person to walk alongside. He never condescendingly talked down to him like so many others did, somehow assuming that because he was in a wheelchair, he must also be stupid, or at least hearing impaired.

For Erik, it came naturally; walking with Charles and holding full conversations, both spoken and mental. He didn’t fuss over the chair’s dipping and bouncing over the uneven dirt road, trusting in the expensive technology to account for any disturbances — though Charles noticed that he steered them the long way around muddy spots.

“You should have worn a hat,” the grumpy Polish man snapped, when a stiff breeze stirred the silver hair from his forehead. Charles smiled, giving him the mental equivalent of a nudge to the brain. Erik nudged him back. When he pulled too far ahead, Charles resisted the urge to make a rather untoward comment — something about hating to see Erik go, but loving to watch him leave.

Teasing Erik had always been a favorite pastime for Charles, but he didn’t think teasing would be welcome; not anymore. He sighed wistfully.

 _We're almost there,_ Erik told him, misinterpreting Charles’s sudden melancholy.

Once breaking from the tree-line, they reached a small plaza boasting several shops. Charles noticed quite a few bicycles, mopeds, and even motorcycles stationed out front than would ever be seen at an American grocery store. Perhaps that was why the rain-scented air was still so fresh.

Erik made a beeline for what looked like a grocery store, or a small supermarket. He moved, as always, with a surety of self; shoulders tall, stride purposeful. A man as tall and handsome as he never blended in anywhere, and so he didn’t try to; instead facing the world as though daring anyone to tell him he didn’t belong. Charles wondered if that was how he got away with being himself so blatantly — nobody expected _Magneto_ to go _shopping._

The store itself was something of a smaller, tidier Walmart, filled with housewives and their young children chasing early-morning sales. A few cast appreciative glances Erik’s way, then raised their eyebrows meaningfully at each other in a fashion that required no translation. Charles held the laughter inside himself like a tiny ball of sunshine.

Erik grabbed a shopping basket, glanced at the list Charles had made, and got to work, filling it with _chleb_ and _mleko_ ; _oliwki_ and his weight’s worth of _makaron_.

Large glass bottles captured Charles’s attention. The collection of Vodka was _impressive._ It wasn’t his adult beverage of choice, but he headed there anyway, pleased to find that they also sold wine, spirits, and beer.

**And to think; back home we’d have to go to a liquor store for all this.**

_I_ thought _you’d like that, you lush._

Charles laughed quietly to himself, filling his lap with all the bottles he could reach. Unfortunately, the lovely little Dagueneau he had his eye on was too high to access, even if he’d leaned on the shelf to reach as far as he could. He looked around for help and saw a mother and son. Smiling charmingly their way, and asked, “Przepraszam; Nie mówię po polsku. Czy mówi Pani po angielsku?” 

It was one of the few phrases he’d cobbled together before meeting Erik at the station. He was almost certain that _‘Pani’_ denoted the correct gender, but cringed when the woman only regarded him blankly, fighting the temptation to dip into her mind and find out.

Then she returned his smile and nudged her shy son towards him. It turned out she herself spoke little English, but was having the boy tutored before he began primary school. He acted as a helpful go-between for their language barrier, and Charles graciously accepted the wine when it was handed to him.

“Be sure to thank your mother for raising such an intelligent boy,” Charles praised, and received a bashful smile in response.

When he turned to leave the aisle, he saw that Erik was watching him, an unreadable expression on his face. Charles inexplicably felt a pang in his chest, as though he’d been caught doing something wrong. He quickly approached his companion and placed the collection of bottles into their basket.

“Did you find the chocolate?” he teased, well aware that he was one of the few living people out there who knew about Magneto’s unquenchable sweet tooth.

“No,” Erik retorted shortly, and dropped a piece of soft fabric on Charles’s lap before turning away.

Charles held it up and felt his smile return in full. Erik had apparently gone all the way to the clothing section and selected for him a hideously ugly gray hat.

###

Charles experienced silence differently than most.

The buzz of thought was always constant, even when he wasn’t looking for it. If he didn’t consciously keep the tide of information out — a draining prospect — some mental traffic filtered in. His mansion, full of youth, was deafening, even when nobody said a word.

Images, snippets of words, phrases, and feelings all made it past Charles’s defenses at some point or another. Some people, like Scott, thought in complete sentences. Others, like Logan, were more emotionally based. It was the background soundtrack to Charles’s life, and now that it was gone, the silence made him feel cagey.

Erik had prepared dinner; a spicy spaghetti with olives and tilapia, tossed lightly with oil and garlic and herbs. He’d baked them soft bread from scratch and poured the wine Charles had bought.

“Oh, old friend,” Charles sighed blissfully. “I’d forgotten how well you cook. Come to that, I’d nearly forgotten what an adult meal tastes like at all! The children only ever seem to want chicken fingers, sugary cereal, or pizza bagels.”

He wrinkled his nose comically, but Erik didn’t laugh. He hardly seemed to be listening at all. Because it was Erik, Charles only hesitated a moment before peeking into his mind, startled to find a curious blankness in there, too.

 **Old friend?** Charles made his presence known, but tried not to show his alarm. **Are you well?**

 _Radio static,_ was the response; unhelpfully vague. _Don’t you hear it?_

Puzzled, Charles fell still, trying to hear whatever Erik was listening to. Faintly, he noticed a light, tickling fuzz in the back of his mind; the connection between him and Erik; the door that never closed. It brought to mind the sensation of touching the glass screens of televisions before everything had gone digital; smelling the ozone when the electrons shocked the pads of his fingers.

Erik’s mind supplied a different picture. In it, he was a young child, dressed in dark, knee-length shorts and a hand-sewn, button-down shirt stiff with starch. He lay on his side half underneath an armchair with a battalion of tin soldiers spread before him. Some had fallen in their valiant battle against the nazis, but most fought bravely on.

Beside the child passed a pair of white, high-heeled shoes attached to a pair of shapely, feminine legs.

 _Mama,_ thought child-Erik, and Charles yearned for a glimpse of her face. But Erik did not look up from his toys, so Charles saw nothing but the hem of her navy skirt.

She crossed their sitting room to a table and adjusted the clicking buttons of some device. It took Charles a moment to understand that she was turning dials on a radio, searching for her favorite tango music, which had been popular at the time. She and ‘papa’ would sometimes dance around the room together, giggling to one another, ever careful to step over their son’s small body on the carpet.

Each station she clicked past was accompanied by some static. A hiss; a crackle. To Erik, it was the sound of anticipation for music; laughter; love.

At last, Charles understood. **That’s like** **_our_ ** **bond, isn’t it?** He asked gently, careful to extricate himself from Erik’s memories before they both became lost in pre-war Poland.

Erik’s blue eyes snapped to Charles’s face. Realizing the implications of what he’d thought, Charles watched with regret as Erik visibly shut down, closing and bolting the doors behind his eyes. Their static fizzled out. They were cut off as completely as if Erik had donned his iconic helmet.

“I meant nothing by that, Erik!” Charles protested, but it was too late. The man stood, rinsed his plate at the sink, and climbed the stairs. Though still in the same barn as Charles, he might as well have been a whole country away.

Alone at the table, Charles found that silence could be loud as a scream.

* * *

**Day 6**

One downside to a deep mental connection was the tendency to hear what wasn’t meant to be shared. No matter how close two people were, nobody should live in someone else’s head. That was one of the many reasons their relationship had been hazardous from the start.

Charles suspected that even if he lost him in a crowd of millions, he’d still be able to find Erik without trying. His ‘voice’ had become so much louder to him than anyone else’s. It sometimes came in handy, such as that day, weeks ago, when Erik had shouted for Charles with pain in his arm and more in his heart... And had been _heard_ over half a state away.

But on nights like tonight, when a heavy rainstorm raged outside, slamming heavy drops against the wide windows and causing the trees all around to writhe as though in agony, Erik’s nightmares forced their way into Charles’s head, too.

_A teenage boy, his skull cracked like an egg, soupy pink brains oozing from his eyes and ears and lips._

_“Tatuś!” a gigantic Pietro, ten feet tall, boomed like a vengeful mountain. “How could you!”_

Charles looked closer at the dead boy and recognized him, by his vest and his fingerless gloves, as the Brotherhood’s Avalanche.

 _“I... I didn’t mean to...” Erik stammered. He was naked; bare to the judgmental eyes of the world. “This wasn’t my intention... I didn’t mean to_ kill...”

 _“So what_ did _you mean?” the Avalanche asked, sitting up from his puddle of brains, head slanting on his crooked neck. “You hit me with a car engine. What did you_ expect _would happen?!”_

_He stood and advanced on Erik, who seemed to shrink with every step Lance took. One of Lance’s eyes rolled from the crushed socket and dangled freely from its optic nerve._

_“Monster,” Lance hissed through broken and missing teeth. “You promised my life would be_ better _if I joined your cause. You_ lied. _Monster, monster...”_

 _“You_ are _a monster,” the enormous Pietro agreed, creeping up behind his now tiny father, trapping him. “Did you ever even love me?”_

_“I did then. I do now!” Erik wept, blind with terror._

_“You’ve sure got a funny way of showing it_.”

Erik’s heart was pounding so fast Charles feared he might suffer a heart attack and drag Charles right on down with him. He struggled to pull free the nightmare, tugging on Erik’s consciousness as hard as he could.

**Wake up, Erik. It is just a nightmare. The Avalanche lives. Wake up, wake up!**

_Charles?_

**You’re only dreaming, darling.**

Slowly, ever so slowly, the dream loosened its hold on Erik, the images and colors running together and swirling to nothing like water down a drain. In his bed, Erik opened his eyes, finding himself drenched in sweat.

_Charles?_

**I am here.**

The gale of wind outside slammed the barn so forcefully that the walls rattled. Charles felt a jolt of panic at a loud bang just outside his room. Sitting bolt upright in bed, he fumbled for his chair. In his haste, he pushed it away and lost his balance, falling half from his bed as he did so. “Erik!” 

_I am coming._

Over the rain, Charles heard the reassuring sound of Erik’s bare feet on the stairs. By the time he reached Charles’s room, the telepath had used the strength of his upper body to push himself back into bed. Erik flicked the light-switch, but nothing happened. The storm had knocked the power out.

“There’s a flashlight in the middle dresser drawer,” Charles said, and so Erik stumbled in the dark to collect it. “We must turn the backup generator on, or we’ll lose all the food in the fridge.”

Stabilized by these normal, everyday problems, Erik turned the flashlight on and, without being asked, moved the wheelchair back to a reachable distance from the bed. He squeezed the other man’s shoulder on his way out; the first he’d willingly touched Charles since their arrival.

“What was that banging noise from before?” Charles asked, trying not to sound too much like a frightened ninny.

Erik took the flashlight into the hallway, searching for the source of the sound, and then let out a bark of laughter. He returned to the room carrying a long, flat object, turning it around for Charles to see the nude oil painting he’d hung of a large, elderly woman lounging suggestively on a polar bear rug.

“It was only your girlfriend coming to say hello,” Erik said, and even in the dim light, Charles could see a ghost of a smile on his lips.

* * *

**Day 11**

“Oh, really?” Charles laughed into the telephone, wrapping up his weekly call with Ororo. “That’s wonderful. I imagine Logan is over the moon.”

The cursed Wolverine’s name caught Erik’s attention. He looked up from his book, eyes narrowed, and glared at Charles’s back. The other man laughed again, absently twirling a thin paintbrush between his dexterous fingers.

Charles had always had lovely hands; fine and soft and expressive as fluttering birds. Erik used to tease him for his lack of calluses, but secretly he’d loved Charles’s hands for almost as long as he’d loved the exasperating man himself.

“Are they really? Where are they going?” Charles listened to Ororo’s response, setting his paintbrush down and bending over his palette to stir a smear of burnt umber before it could dry into uselessness. He’d gone to the store the day before and come back with canvases and paint, presumably inspired by all the horrible art he’d hung on the walls.

“Goodness, that’s quite a journey. Three weeks, you say? Tell him I expect him to get back to work as soon as he returns! Oh, but I _am_ happy for them. Give him my love, won’t you? And take care of yourself, too. You always worked too hard... Yes, I’m aware that I am the _reason_ you work so hard. Oh come now, you’re fond of me, no? After all this time? _Ororo!”_

Charming bastard. Erik didn’t even need to be looking at him to imagine his winning smile.

Charles said his goodbyes and hung up. The phone was probably hot to the touch now. Erik couldn’t understand how Charles could talk and talk and _talk_ for hours at a time on the damned thing. When forced to use the phone, Erik approached it with suspicion, and didn’t linger a second longer than necessary. He didn’t trust the things, and he didn’t enjoy talking to anything when he couldn’t see its face.

“What is your dog doing now?” he asked, feigning disinterest as he flicked a page in his book. Charles turned to face him.

 _“Logan_ —” he reprimanded “—just left the courthouse. He is now legally the father of the Brotherhood. They’re about to go on a summer vacation together.”

Erik nearly dropped his book. Then, as always when struck by a stinging, verbal bullet, he traveled down deep to the safety of his mind, waiting for the attack to cease. “I see,” he said calmly. “You’re saying that my children are no longer mine?”

He hadn’t even known it was legal to adopt a child if their parent was still living. But truly? Pietro... and Wanda...?

_Did you ever even love me?_

Charles looked at him shrewdly, his lightheartedness from before making way to something more knowing. “Would it make a difference if that were the case?”

Erik wanted to say that no, as far as it concerned him, Pietro and Wanda could do as they liked. He swallowed, feeling as though there was a lump in his throat, and studied Charles’s face, searching for any hint of a merciful truth.

“Pietro and Wanda chose not to be adopted, if you must know,” he said, and Erik sagged bonelessly in his chair. He had no right to judge anything his children did. They were their own people, and he’d dragged them through enough hell. Their lives belonged to them now. Yet still…

Still. Selfish as it may be, it relieved him to hear the outcome of their choice.

“Your book is upside-down,” Charles informed him, and returned to his painting.

* * *

**Day 20**

Whoever had lived at the barn before them had cleared out quite a lot of forest ground just outside. The rusty trellises, climbed now only by overzealous weeds, told a ghost story of a long-forgotten garden. Armed with gloves and pruning shears and a noxious weed-killer he’d brewed himself in the form of dish-soap and salt boiled in a large pot of water, Erik stormed outside to wage a war against nature.

* * *

**Day 22**

Once the worst of the poison ivy ( _trujący Bluszcz_ ) swelling had cleared up, Erik returned, more cautiously this time, and set to work clearing up the now-dead weeds. He churned the dirt with fertilizer and fresh potting soil, replacing the nutrients the weeds had stolen, and planted meticulous, even rows of carrots and cauliflower, interspersed with marigolds to attract bees and repel mosquitos.

He planted beans closer to the barn, meant to eventually climb the trellises. Spinach framed the outside, closest to the woods.

Erik admired his work, brushing dirty hands off on the jeans he’d purchased at the store. (When was the last time he’d worn jeans?! It felt novel to do so now.)

Then he turned around and went back inside.

“It rains so frequently here,” he informed Charles, proudly echoing something he’d heard his father say long ago. “Everything grows, with scarcely any effort at all. This is God’s land.”

* * *

**Day 30**

During the night, a herd of deer wandered in from the forest to eat every single cauliflower sprout, tender and new, trampling all the spinach and marigolds in their path.

Erik stared at the wasteland. Where once there had been something, now there was nothing. Everything was dead.

His heart felt strangely raw at the sight. Maybe there was no God in this land. Maybe there was no God _anywhere._ He supposed he’d known that all along; Holocaust survivors who still believed in any deity were few and far between.

He gathered his secret collection of metal shavings; odds and ends he’d picked up here and there walking back and forth from the plaza. Charles had deliberately ensured that there was precious little metal inside their barn, and so Erik had found his own. One never knew when they’d need a toy, a tool... or a weapon.

Without a word, he strode deep into the woods, and he found his revenge.

* * *

**Day 31**

“You didn’t need to kill her,” Charles reprimanded, when he saw the whitetail doe strung high on the pine tree just outside.

Blood and offal weren’t kosher, though Erik had eaten plenty of both when he was a starving youth. He’d bled her and left her skin and organs in the forest for other beasts to consume, and now he made space in their freezer to hold the large quantity of meat.

Erik frowned. “Food is food,” he argued, put off by the note of regret in Charles’s tone. “Surely you know that your steak and veal came from _something_ living. How is this any different?”

But there _was_ a difference, and he knew it. Erik hadn’t killed for want of food. She — or, at least, her _kind —_ had hurt him, and so he, in turn, had killed her. He’d felt justified in doing so. He still felt justified now.

Charles looked out the window again, at the lifeless thing draped in the branches. “You didn’t need to kill her,” he repeated, and in that moment, his voice was a fragile thing.

* * *

**Day 32**

That night, Erik dreamed again.

He couldn’t blame the medication; not anymore. He’d taken the final dose days before. He still flushed and packed his gouges, but only twice a day now; a more perfunctory measure than of any pressing need.

He dreamed all the same. Strange dreams; muddy and confusing. Faces swam in his mind; many he didn’t recognize; some he placed vaguely as men and women he’d glimpsed as a teenager surviving Auschwitz.

He’d been unable to save any of his people. He’d scarcely been able to help himself. Perhaps some seed of that helplessness lived in him now; something he had to defy constantly by excelling in all things. He would not be helpless again. He would be the hand that lifted his people higher!

He saw his father, with his thin brown mustache and square shoulders, in brief, striking relief. He hadn’t even made it to Auschwitz. Jakob Lehnsherr been killed long before his wife and son were taken, though Erik had not seen it happen. He reached for the man, realizing in some shock that in adulthood he’d grown taller than his parent by nearly half a foot. In his memories, the man had seemed a perpetual giant.

He opened his mouth to call for him — _“don’t go; come here where it’s safe, papa!” —_ but seemed unable to speak. He couldn’t breathe this icy air, let alone speak with it.

His father turned and disappeared into the crowd of people swimming in Erik’s mind.

“You didn’t need to kill her,” said a woman, close behind him.

Erik turned, and was unsurprised to see Magda again. She frequented his dreams more than most. Tonight she wore her cutoff jeans and a red polo shirt, her tiny Magen David gleaming like a snowflake between her collarbones. Her hair hung frizzy and loose, a wild, bushy halo around her head. She had beautiful hair, his Magda, but she rarely cared for it properly. She didn’t have the patience.

Erik had spent many hours of his life combing coconut oil into the coarse strands, tying them up with rags before he went to sleep. She’d used Erik as a pillow; slinging a leg over his body, cuddly as an octopus, usually elbowing him in the face no less than four times a night as he breathed in that soft coconut smell.

“Hello,” Erik greeted, grateful that his voice had been unlocked at last, and reached to draw her closer. She stepped out of his reach, eyes narrowed like Pietro’s, or perhaps a cat’s.

“You didn’t need to kill her!” she repeated, fists planted on her wide hips. She was speaking in Vlax Romani, as she always did whenever she was truly annoyed with him. Though they were both fluent in several languages, Magda’s native tongue always gave him trouble.

“Don’t use Charles’s words,” Erik protested in Polish, though she’d never met the man in her too-brief lifespan.

“But you didn’t _need_ to do it!”

This was a stress dream, Erik realized, having been made semi-lucid by force of pure frustration. It would repeat on a loop unless he broke the cycle. He’d wake cranky and more tired than when he’d hit the pillow.

“I’d like to wake up now,” Erik said, and caught a flash of disappointment in Magda’s face before he opened his eyes.

* * *

**Day 49**

Grilled deer steaks. Fried venison. Deer tacos. Sweet and spicy deer kebabs. Rack of venison. Venison and onion sandwiches. If Charles never again ate a bite of deer meat in his life, it would be too soon.

There’d been just over a hundred pounds in their freezer at the start of the month. Eating her felt wrong, but the alternative would’ve felt worse. If they’d left the paper-wrapped slabs to gather frost and guilt like a shroud, both men might have gone mad long before winter, and the resultant cabin fever, could strike. Speaking of which...

“Erik?” Charles called, looking away from the canvas on which he painted. He’d put his upscale education — his childhood had been rife with tutors in tasteful suits expounding on art and politics, fashion and etiquette and history (even if it _was_ a very sanitized version of history that always framed England in a positive light) — to use, carefully penciling a fruit bowl before filling it in with color blocks.

Erik stuck his head through the back door. He’d been working in his garden again. His skin had tanned to gold from all his labor out there, the lucky man. If Charles didn’t wear sunblock and a hat, he burned red as a tomato in minutes. “Yes?”

“Would you accompany me to the shops today? I saw in the paper they’re having a sale on space-heaters, and we’ll need several when winter comes.” He considered. “Perhaps we should bring the wagon. We can’t carry them back ourselves.”

Well. _Erik_ could, but not without use of metal manipulation, and seeing the man use his powers to lift anything heavier than a fork still made Charles feel uneasy. It was best just to load purchases in the wagon they’d found in the property’s storage shed, and drag it along the bumpy dirt path slowly eroding to smoothness in all their travel.

“I can do that,” Erik agreed, and brought up the hem of his shirt to dab sweat from his face, exposing a hard belly and a tapering trail of silvery hair as he did so. Charles opened his mouth to tease that country living had made a savant out of the tight-mannered Magneto, but found that it was difficult to tear his eyes from that patch of fox-soft fur.

He was being foolish. It was nothing he hadn’t seen (touched, stroked, _licked)_ before, and he was far too old to be distracted by such trivialities now. They were beyond things of that nature. Leave lust for the hormone-addled young things, and good riddance!

But, oh, Charles’s too-warm face and heart, suddenly thundering a prairie stampede, apparently had yet to receive that memo. He swallowed, his throat desert-dry, and Erik caught his eye before slowly lowering his shirt and taking a step back. “I’ll be ready in a few moments,” he said, voice strained, and turned to climb the stairs to his bedroom and bathroom.

Mortified, Charles cursed himself, and set his elbow down in a wet patch of Brittany Blue #4.

###

It was a quiet trip in soupy, miserable humidity to the plaza. In places where the sun touched the damp dirt road, Charles saw steam visibly rise; an unfortunate side-effect of the frequent rains. That, and the mosquitos. The beauty and fertility of the land came at a price.

Erik pulled the empty wagon without complaint, his eyes focused straight ahead. Charles felt an urge to apologize, but couldn’t for the life of him figure out what to say. _I’m sorry that I still find you attractive? I’m sorry I’m only a man? Sorry I made you remember what we used to be; that we keep returning to our regrettable pasts like rats in a science lab, forever touching the wires that electrocute us?_

He could think of nothing good to say, so he said nothing at all. And Erik had closed the harbors of his mind, cutting off any entry from Charles, unless he tried very hard to break past the borders. To do so would have been unforgivably rude, and would likely result in Erik leaving him forever. So, they both kept to themselves.

It was not lost on Charles that Erik had not once donned his helmet since they’d moved in together — an olive branch that could be revoked at any time.

Erik held the store door open for Charles, who murmured soft thanks, basking in the blast of air conditioning that chilled his sweaty face. He’d noticed that Europe did not use AC as much as the states did, but they still kept places of business cool.

It didn’t take long to load their wagon with space-heaters; a small one for each bedroom and a larger one for the kitchen/dining area. This was probably overkill, as they also had a fireplace, but Charles figured they were better safe than sorry. He watched Erik peel multicolored złoty from his wallet to pay the cashier in a daze. Maybe the heat was getting to him.

Erik glanced at his face as they left the store. “Are you well?”

Charles forced a smile, cooling his neck with a paper fan he’d tucked in the basket under his chair. “You know I’m no good in heat.”

Erik knew. Rather than make fun of Charles for his weak constitution, he instead crossed the parking lot to the grocery. Once inside, he pulled two glass bottles of oranżada from the mini-refrigerator by the cash registers, and pressed one to Charles’s cheek. The chilled bottle felt marvelous against his skin, and he knew drinking the sugary beverage would be nicer still. He took it and leaned his head against Erik’s arm, if only for a moment.

 _My father sometimes bought these for me when I was small,_ Erik told him, and Charles blinked. Erik rarely disclosed information like that, choosing instead to hold his few precious, pre-war memories tight to his chest, as though to speak them aloud would be to lose them forever.

 **Thank you,** Charles replied, meaning for more than just the drink. Erik lightly touched his shoulder and then pulled away, approaching the cashier to pay for the bottles. Charles felt forgiven for his earlier slip. Erik was such a hot-and-cold animal. For every step of progress Charles felt they’d made, he would turn around and find them right back where they’d started... Only for Erik to unexpectedly do something kind. It was difficult for even a highly skilled telepath like Charles to predict his actions.

The cashier — a burly man with thick arms and a red face — scanned Erik’s bottle twice and then accepted the bills from him. As he was putting the money into his register, he muttered something snide under his breath.

Erik’s entire demeanor changed in an instant. He stiffened, standing straight as the tin soldiers he used to play with, his eyes flashing murder.

 **Erik?** Charles reached for him, but Erik wasn’t listening. He’d pressed closer to the cashier stand, his spine apparently having been replaced by a steel rod, and fixed the man with a look that would’ve given anyone nightmares. He asked a question in clipped, icy Polish.

Charles wasn’t fluent in the language, but he didn’t need to be. The man’s thoughts, though murky, came through loud enough. There was something about Erik he didn’t like — the word _‘Zhyd,’_ Charles caught. He’d somehow picked up on the fact that Erik was Jewish. And... _‘Pedał’?_

**What does—**

_He is implying that, because we are attracted to men, we must also be attracted to children,_ Erik thought so crisply that Charles flinched. The acid burning behind Erik’s tone was enough to curdle his insides. ‘ _Not only a pedophile, but a Jew as well.’ That’s what he said._

Oh. A terrible offense, then. **Erik, please…**

The cashier, annoyed with being ignored during this mental conversation, spoiling for a fight, spoke again. His words snapped something inside Erik. Charles felt the static in the room increase tenfold. Before Erik could unleash metallic hell upon the bigoted stranger, Charles seized Erik by his mind, physically wrenching him away from the stand as though he were a dog on a leash.

Erik took several stumbling steps back, eyes wide, dropping the oranżada bottle as he did so. The glass shattered noisily on the pristine tile floor, sending glittering fragments and sticky juice splashing everywhere, soaking the cuffs of Erik’s trousers.

Charles didn’t stop there. With one hand on the wagon handle, he backed into the shop door and mentally dragged Erik along with him, using all the force of his will to make the man take stilted step after stilted step. It was astoundingly difficult. Erik was a stubborn, iron-strong soul that did not yield easily; not even to Charles’s considerable powers. It would be impossible to bind him this way for longer than a few moments.

The cashier stared after them, confused by their marionette’s dance. Once outside, Charles only forced Erik a few more steps into the parking lot before he shook the telepath’s hold from his mind, and then he was spitting fire.

“Charles!” he roared, face coloring red fury, and gave his housemate a shove, sending the wheels of his chair slamming into the outside of the building. The jolt shuddered up the length of Charles’s spine. A group of elderly women at the nearby bus stop stared at them, jaws hanging. “How could you, Charles?!”

Charles tried not to let his fear show. He kept his shoulders squared, his chin high. But he had little defense against the much stronger man. He resisted the urge to take a nervous gulp. “I didn’t want you to do something you’d regret, old friend,” he whispered. _Please don’t do something you might regret now,_ he thought, but did not share.

“You think I’d regret killing that — that _skurwysyn!”_ Erik laughed bitterly, their faces so close that Charles felt breath against his forehead. “He deserves to die screaming.”

Charles lifted a shaking hand and placed it atop Erik’s. “Perhaps. But you need not be the one to do it. Aren’t you tired of this endless fight? No matter how many lives you take, there will always be another battle.”

“But there will be one less piece of filth polluting my world, and that’s good enough for me!”

“‘He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster.’”

“Don’t you quote Nietzsche at me, Charles! I’m _already_ a monster, and proud to be so!” Erik gave him another shove, but with less force this time, and Charles knew the fight was over. For now, anyway. But what would the consequences be? Surely he’d not heard the last of it.

Erik stared ferociously into Charles’s eyes for another long moment. Charles calmly returned the look. Snorting his disgust, Erik straightened and turned his back, beginning the long walk home at a clipped pace. After taking a second to catch his breath, Charles cautiously followed.

The women at the bus stop broke into frenzied gossip as soon as he passed them by.

* * *

**Day 50**

Erik donned his helmet and did not take it off until Charles went to bed. He repeated this routine every day, and almost immediately developed a strange tanline around it.

Charles completed his painting, ingeniously titled ‘Bowl of Apples’ (though perhaps it should have been titled ‘Bowl of Ambiguous Green Blobs’ instead), set it aside to dry, and began the sequel, ‘Banana and Pear.’

* * *

**Day 53**

The carrots and beans Erik had planted were growing tiny, curling shoots above the soil. He surrounded them with garlic and lavender to keep the deer at bay, then installed a motion-activated sprinkler system to act as a backup.

* * *

**Day 57**

“I am decidedly tired of being sober,” Charles announced to the helmeted Magneto, who sat rigid, knitting needles acrobatically darting and diving as they violently attacked a skein of fuzzy gray yarn. They brought to mind a pair of very thin, very pointy birds ambushing a small mammal. The poor thing didn’t stand a chance.

Unsurprisingly, Erik did not respond. He had not spoken a word to Charles all week.

Charles entered the kitchen and opened a cupboard, pulling out a bottle of wine, then taking a second as well. He almost reached for a drinking glass before withdrawing his hand. Why bother, right? “I am about to get very drunk.” He almost dropped the third wine bottle, but caught it in time. “And I’m not sharing a drop with you unless you ask me for some.”

A light twitch of shoulder was the only acknowledgement Charles received; noticeable only because he’d been paying such close attention. He fumbled in a drawer for the corker and withdrew it, clicking it like a lobster’s claw in his hand. “Why shouldn’t I? I’m not working with children anymore. I don’t have to be a role-model for anyone.”

The cork on a cheap bottle of red popped easily enough, making a satisfying ‘thomp’ sound. Charles resisted the childishly strong urge to chuck it at Erik’s helmet and instead dropped it to the floor. He blew on the neck of the bottle, dispersing the water vapor rising from the top. He considered allowing it time to breathe; considered again reaching for a glass like a civilized gentleman...

And then he tipped his head back and took a hearty swig straight from the bottle. Berry-colored drops escaped the seam of his lips to curve his jaw and stain his throat.

###

“The girls all get prettier at closing time! They begin to look like movie stars. The girls all get prettier at closing time, when the change starts taking place...”

Charles traveled around Erik’s chair in ever-shrinking circles. Who knew he was such an accomplished singer?! Why hadn’t anyone ever told him he had true musical genius trapped within his soul all along? Forget mutant rights activism; Broadway was calling his name!

Erik continued to ignore him. That wouldn’t do at all. Charles wanted applause!

“We all picture in our minds a girl that looks just right. Ain’t it funny, ain’t it strange, the way a man’s opinion changes when he starts to face that lonely night!”

Incredible. Two and a half bottles of wine in and he wasn’t even slurring. Did the world deserve him?! Of course not. They should all consider themselves lucky to be graced by his presence.

“You should consider yourself lucky,” Charles informed Erik, when he noticed those ice-blue eyes tracking his movements from one side of the kitchen/dining area to another.

“And why is that, Charles?” He asked tolerantly.

“Oh-ho-ho!” Charles chortled. He didn’t think he’d ever ‘chortled’ before. “He speaks! You, my fine feathered friend, are lucky because...” Wait, why was Erik lucky again? Damn. And his train of thought had been so profound before it was so cruelly derailed! Alas, alas.

When he noticed a glimmer of amusement in Erik’s eyes, he brightened and dared bring his wheelchair even closer. Perhaps they were on the mend?

“I so _hate_ it when we argue, darling,” Charles pouted.

“We always argue,” Erik argued.

“Yes, and I hate it. Why can’t you just love me?”

Erik startled, and could come up with nothing to say for a moment. “And you love _me,_ do you?”

Charles snorted, blowing his lips out like a horse’s and rolling his eyes heavenward. “Honestly! And they call you a genius.”

“No one has ever called me that.”

“Tabloids do; ‘evil genius,’ ‘evil mastermind.’ I do too, sometimes, but never to your face.”

Erik set his needles aside, and Charles peered blearily at them, taking in the complicated braids of yarn. “What has you so agitated on this lovely night, darling?”

“Who says I’m agitated?”

“The more upset you become, the more intricate your knitting. If I’m not mistaken, that right there is a Pemberley pattern, which should speak for itself. Were you a cat, your fur would stand on end and your tail would beat the walls.”

Erik raised a single eyebrow; an effect that looked ridiculous on most people, but only made him all the more debonair. Blast his good genes and delayed aging!

“Do you really want to know what’s bothering me, Charles?”

“Of course!” Charles clasped his hands and rested them beneath his chin, the very picture of undivided attention. Erik adjusted his sleeves, taking a deep breath and clearing his throat as though preparing for a tirade.

“It’s upsetting that Poland once had the highest population of Jews in Europe, and now we scarcely exist in our own home. One day, I will be the last to remember how things used to be. I’m angry that in this supposedly evolved time, a cashier can look me in the eye and tell me I should have burned.”

Erik’s hands shook. The knitting needles on the table clacked in sympathy.

Charles, eyes wide, cautiously approached the chair Erik sat in. Erik watched him do it and made no move to stop him. Their knees touched, and Erik sighed from somewhere deep inside his soul.

“I’m ‘agitated’ because, despite all my work, despite everything I‘ve done, my children still had to grow up in a world that’s hardly changed at all. And I am furious with _you.”_

Charles startled, shaken out of his rapt focus by this reminder of himself. _“Me!”_

“Yes, you.” Erik’s brow furrowed. He pinched the bridge of his nose, as though staving off a headache. “I showed you a fraction of trust, and you abused it, Charles! How _could_ you force me like that?! You _know_ how that makes me feel!”

Charles was at a loss. His drifting chair nudged him forward, until his knee slipped between Erik’s, braiding the two of them together. He put a hand on Erik’s chest to stop the progress, and then they sat, closer than friends, Erik’s heartbeat steady under Charles’s palm. “Erik, I...”

“Don’t say you had to stop me. Don’t say you care about that swine. You didn’t. You don’t. You want to keep me beneath your thumb to show all your little friends at home I’m a _good_ monster; that I can be tamed; kept; taught to behave. Isn’t that right?”

Charles swallowed, eyes lowered, swaying in his seat. It was hard to remain upright like this, when his bones had been pickled in alcohol. He leaned to push his face into Erik’s neck, feeling his warm, solid form; breathing in his sharp, clean scent.

“I want to keep you,” Charles agreed, the fabric of Erik’s shirt brushing his lips as he spoke. “But I can’t if you stay the way you are. Someday, someone will take you away; lock you somewhere you _can’t_ escape from. Why must you fight me on every little thing?!”

Erik’s large, rough hand pressed to the back of Charles’s bald head. It was a gesture familiar to them both; something they’d done a lifetime ago whenever Charles became cold. It warmed him to his core, then and now. His mishandled heart was a physical ache in his chest — splintered and incomplete and pulsing all the same. No matter how close they got, he thought, it would never be close enough.

“You can’t change me,” Erik said in Charles’s ear. “And you cannot ‘fix’ me, either. I’m begging you to stop trying.”

* * *

**Day 58**

Charles woke in bed with a splitting headache, a roiling stomach, and his pajamas buttoned all wrong. He groaned and pressed his face into a pillow, only to discover something curiously soft on his head. When he raised his hand to touch it, he realized that he’d put on the ugly hat Erik had purchased for him, for reasons unknown to God or man.

He smiled in secret to himself for all of two seconds, then promptly sat up and vomited into his empty side-table drawer.

* * *

**Day 78**

“Erik, I can’t get this jar open. Would you please — Oh, thank you.”

From where he stood just outside the house, Erik twirled the metal lid of the jar around the tip of his index finger and smiled.

* * *

**Day 81**

He’d been so focused on letting the carrots grow that he’d entirely forgotten to harvest them when their three weeks were up.

The realization hit like ice down his spine, and he scrambled outside without even his shoes, no doubt looking ridiculous as he used his hands and various metal implements to dig up the roots.

Carrots grow underground, but the flowers blooming above the soil acted as beacons: ‘here we are! Dig here!’ Tiny things; white and bunched, crawling with helpful ladybirds to keep destructive aphids at bay.

Erik cursed, infuriated, when he struggled and fought and pulled up the first bunch, so accustomed to its home in the earth that neither would give the other up. Nature didn’t care about being useful to others. Nature existed on its own agenda. The tangled knots of vegetables were useless to him — the carrot-root flies had long since murdered them by boring through their insides, leaving them hollow and black and rotten.

Erik swore with an embarrassing degree of emotion and threw them aside. He had nobody to blame for this waste but himself.

He tried to shake his anger off, but it lingered, kindling a fire in his chest as he worked the rest of the afternoon digging and discarding the neglected roots; things he’d intended to care for, but had grown unrecognizable in his absence. The flowers they produced were so sweet and bright they felt like a mockery of things lost; things that could have been. Lives that no longer required his care.

Ladybirds swarmed, attracted to the salt of his sweat. They clung to his skin, their shells glossy like bites of candy. He ignored them as he gathered the many, many carrots, dumping them into a cloth bag. This was the way of all wars: discover the problem, remove the rot, repair the damage, and sow the seeds for new growth.

He walked to the hot, strong-smelling compost bin he’d set up beside the kitchen door, where fruit peels and vegetable cuttings and crushed eggshells were dropped and left to rot; stirred by a large wooden spoon twice a week to encourage airflow.

Decomposition would occur faster if he chopped the carrots, but they were so soft and rotten already that he doubted it would make any difference. Instead, he used scissors to hack off the flowers and the roots, throwing the latter away and keeping the former to dry and harvest their seeds. The rest were added to the bin and stirred. Rot created life — the cycle had no end.

He entered the barn, heart heavy with regret, and set to work at the kitchen sink, knotting twine around bunches of flowers and then hanging them upside-down from the ceiling to dry until only one remained.

He examined the bunch for a moment, fluffing the tiny flowers with his fingers, and this time tied the twine in a bow instead of a utilitarian knot. He filled a mason jar with water and placed the leaking stems inside, then carried the jar into Charles’s bedroom, setting it on his table in a reflective patch of sun. The sight of it eased the heaviness from his chest.

He glanced in Charles’s vanity mirror on his way out and noticed a blood-bright ladybird riding his cheek like a beauty-mark.

* * *

**Day 86**

Following the heavy rain from the night before, Charles watched Erik dig in the mud of the swollen stream, feet bare and trousers rolled to expose inches of golden leg.

“Bucket?”

Charles held the requested vessel out. Erik reached behind himself to drop a squiggling earthworm onto the hellish mass of their kin he’d acquired.

Charles dared peek inside at all the trapped bodies, then cringed and quickly looked away. He liked nature well enough, but preferred it to remain on the other side of a window where it wasn’t so... _slimy._

“Don’t you think you have enough?” he asked, when Erik took a few steps to the side and dug anew.

“Just a few more.”

“Why not cut the ones you already have in half to double the number of worms?”

“That doesn’t work, Charles.” There was a note of laughter in Erik’s words. He was in higher spirits than usual. “That’s how you get two halves of a dead worm. Useful for fishing, I suppose, but not for composting.”

Charles had to admit that his expansive knowledge did not extend to invertebrate physiology. It wasn’t a topic he’d ever had much interest in.

“City boy,” Erik teased, his voice warm enough to make Charles’s heart skip a beat.

“Country bumpkin.”

Erik spent the next half an hour hunting worms before he declared the deed done. He climbed out of the stream and onto the sweet-smelling grass, wiping his muddy hands and feet off, then dunked them in the water until they were relatively clean. Charles couldn’t help but think he looked thirty years younger out here, the fresh air pinking his cheeks and messing his hair. It made him feel nostalgic for their past; excited for their future.

The lowering sun reached an angle that struck the surface of the water and, for a few brief seconds, turned their entire world to gold. Both men watched with wide eyes as the wind bowed the springy grass in half, causing the water to dapple and shiver. It was so lovely that looking at it directly felt almost like a crime; something heavenly that he was never meant to see and would surely burst his heart.

Far above them soared an egret, milky wings expanded, legs — so long and awkward on land — tucked tidily beneath its body. It drifted on thermals that translated to a gentle breeze stirring Erik’s hair and caused the blanket on Charles’s lap to flap.

This place. This air. This man, standing tall beside him. What small things they were, cradled within the palm of the world.

When Charles reached for Erik’s cold, damp hand, the other mutant allowed him to take it.

“Wanda and I used to do this together,” Erik confessed unexpectedly. His voice was a low rumble from somewhere deep in his chest. His face was smooth and impassive, and Charles knew instinctively not to breach his mind searching for a hint of his feelings. He squeezed his hand instead.

“You hunted for worms with Wanda?”

“Yes. For the garden. For fishing. To make her smile.”

He said nothing more. The two of them watched the sunset, and then without another word they turned to return to their barn.

* * *

**Day 111**

Chess wasn’t the only game they played, but it was their favorite.

They tried similar games called ‘Go,’ ‘Xiangqi,’ and ‘Shogi,’ each of which frustrated them both into nearly overturning the table from arguing over the rules. Charles refused to even _look_ at the now-dusty Scrabble box, at which he accused Erik, frequently, of cheating. (“Words that aren’t in English don’t _count,_ Erik!” “You’re only sore because I know more languages than you.”)

But more and more they fell into the old classic of jigsaw puzzles. They’d completed four already. Half of the adventure was just _getting_ there — to an outdoor coffee shop; a woodsy park; a random, graffitied picnic table overlooking a dairy farm; anywhere with a sufficiently sized flat surface would do — before overturning the box containing thousands of pieces smaller than Erik’s pinkie nail and getting to work.

It was a tedious effort, and highly frustrating. The pieces were made of cardstock, not metal; dead pulp that didn’t hum and call to Erik, forming cohesive patterns in his brain. And because the two men went so far out of their way, it challenged them to complete the picture before it became too dark to see.

That they were competitive to a fault didn’t help matters. Erik inadvertently taught Charles all the filthiest curses in every language he knew before they finished. They’d contracted light head colds once by continuing to work long after it’d begun to rain, too stubborn to give up even as the stink of cow manure was amplified tenfold by the moisture, gagging them where they sat.

 _(We are being ridiculous._

**Would you like to stop?**

_Not on your life.)_

Today, stationed just outside the library, the sun was high, Charles had slathered himself in enough sunblock to choke a horse, and both were in high spirits from sharing a bottle of wine between them.

The puzzle in question, just over twenty thousand pieces, was called “Molly Pemberton’s Garden” and featured a dense green space crawling with hundreds of plants and trailing vines, and the occasional stone or insect.

“I cannot _fathom_ why ‘Miss Pemberton’ planted celery so close to her root vegetables,” Erik sneered, dexterously flipping pieces over so that the picture was always on top. “It’s as though she _wants_ to attract flies and choke the roots.”

“Some people want to watch the world burn,” Charles agreed sagely. He had an irritating habit of diving for the most colorful or interesting-looking pieces, rather than focusing on nice, solid edges. No wonder his battle strategies were always so chaotic.

In a nearby tree, a fat, speckled bird with a black throat and a sunset stain on its breast let out an angry buzzing noise. Charles glanced up at it, and then his jaw dropped in wonder. “Oh!” he exclaimed, and the door between their minds flooded with sudden excitement.

He reached beneath his chair and snatched for a spiral notebook and his bifocals; the latter of which he shoved onto his nose while flipping the former to a fresh page. He dropped the notebook onto their puzzle as he fumbled for a pencil, nearly upsetting his wine glass.

“Have a care!” Erik protested when a handful of puzzle pieces were sent dancing off the table. Charles ignored him and scrawled out every detail regarding the bird.

“That’s a hazel warbler!” he informed Erik happily. “I’m reasonably certain, anyway. They’re quite a find in birding circles... Do you think they might carry information on local breeds in the library?”

Erik blinked at Charles, then up at the bird, which glared reproachfully at them. When he looked back, Charles was beaming at him, his eyes magnified like a dragonfly’s beneath his glasses.

“Mon Dieu,” Erik breathed. He’d picked up the phrase through too much time spent working with Gambit. “Charles, Pietro was right. We are _old.”_

Charles huffed a laugh, his attention once more centered on his notes. “Well, yes, we’re _old,_ Erik. You, especially. Logan’s called you a cradle-snatcher several times now, you know.” He was referring to the fact he was over a decade younger than his ‘old friend.’ There was mischief twinkling in his voice. Erik was too dazed to protest.

He never really thought he’d live long enough to become old. So few of the people he loved ever had. Not his parents; not his childhood friends; not Magda. Yet here he sat, pushing eighty and birdwatching with his most beloved enemy in the country of his birth. How strange life was.

The warbler warbled off. Charles put his notebook away, but kept his glasses, sipped his wine, and resumed their puzzle.

“Speaking of Quicksilver,” he commented idly, snapping two pieces together and searching for a third that would complete the head of a sunflower. “Were you aware that I had a confrontation with your son last winter?”

“Did you?”

“Yes. He gave me a black eye, actually. I haven’t been privy to one of _those_ since I was a young thing. It was quite a blast from the past, though not an enjoyable one.”

Erik felt flummoxed. “Pietro _hit_ you?!” That wasn’t like his son at _all..._

... Or was it? Erik had to concede that perhaps he didn’t know his children as well as he’d once thought he did.

“Oh, yes” Charles found the piece he was searching for, then immediately became distracted by the striking purple color of the one beside it.

Erik was left gaping at Charles’s placid face. What did one _do_ when their son punched their oldest friend?! Apologize, probably. He opened his mouth to do just that, but what came out instead was, “did you deserve it?”

Charles looked up sharply and met his eyes. A moment passed. “I suppose I did,” he confessed, voice thoughtful. _He_ didn’t apologize, either.

* * *

**Day 131**

Though they hadn’t planned on it, both men celebrated the Autumnal equinox in their own fashion.

Rosh Hashanah was fast approaching and, although Erik no longer celebrated holidays (or had anyone to celebrate _with_ ), he still kept thoughts of new beginnings in mind as he worked in his garden.

After harvesting his second, and more successful, batch of carrots, Erik tilled the soil. He added both compost and what Wanda had once called “worm juice” — a nutrient-dense soup filling the bottom of the compost bin after the worms inside had been hard at work — he planted fall produce. Onions and chamomile and sage now surrounded the last of the strawberries he’d planted the month prior. He didn’t trust the local deer herd not to touch the berries, so he kept vigilant watch day and night.

After rinsing off, he set the kitchen radio to a local station and, on a whim, peeled a stack of green apples. As he did, allowing his mind to wander, he found the crisp perfume of apple transporting him back to a softer time.

As a small child, Pietro’d had an angelic face that made strangers everywhere stop and smile. Those enormous blue eyes; that silky mop of hair _(“what an unusual color!”);_ the golden skin... He favored his mother even then, though it was always his father he leaned against when the weight of the world grew too heavy to bear.

What _had_ he been crying about on that afternoon, so long ago? There was always something; a frightening dog, a push from his sister; the mysterious dark of the basement... Whatever had made his eyes overflow, there was precious little that “apple treats” — baked apples loaded sky-high with cinnamon and sugar — could not cure.

Erik smiled absently, remembering how difficult it was to peel the fruit with a toddler balanced on one hip, arms locked fiercely around his father’s neck, wide-eyed in wonder as he watched the perfect curls of peel drop from knife to sink.

He’d reached for the knife only once, attracted to the shine of sunlight on metal. A sharp word from his father brought more tears to his eyes. Pietro had stuffed his reaching fingers into his own mouth instead, cringing into Erik’s neck, keening miserably. So damn _sensitive_ to every little thing...

Oh, but the tears dried fast once the sugar came down from the shelf!

Erik now arranged the naked, cored apples in the bottom of a baking dish, pouring in cold water; a pat of butter. He dusted them liberally with cinnamon and brown sugar. Because he was no longer catering to a toddler’s picky palate, he also added nutmeg and cloves. He opened the door to the oven and slid the dish inside, then left them be. It’d be a long, slow bake into prime softness.

Pietro had never had much patience, even before his powers kicked in, but on those days of baking apples he remained as still as possible in Erik’s arms, soaking up the affection as though he knew, even then, that it was a limited commodity — that one day it would dry up entirely.

Erik remembered how it felt to bury his face in that duckling-fluff hair, breathing his powdery scent. The twins took ill a lot in those days, as many toddlers did; rheumy eyes, cold sweats, runny noses... Pietro’d felt warm as a furnace on Erik’s lap.

He’d touched his father’s lips, the crescent moons of his fingernails pricking just this side of too sharp, and Erik had known immediately what he’d wanted.

“Which song, chłopczyk?” he’d ask. Sometimes Pietro would reply; sometimes he wouldn’t. It didn’t matter; the answer was always the same. Erik felt the shape of lyrics form on his tongue. _Byly sobie kotki dwa. A-a-a, kotki dwa, szarobure, szarobure obydwa..._

There were once two little kittens. Ah-ah-ah, two little kittens; they were both a grayish-brown...

Just when Erik was in danger of feeling too much of... _whatever_ this emotion was, he saw Charles’s bedroom door swing open.

“That smells nice,” he commented, regarding the way Erik slumped at the kitchen table. “What are you making?”

“Apple treats.”

Charles retreated into his room, only to reemerge with a canvas stretched tight over a wooden frame in his arms. “Can I get some honest critique on my newest painting? I truly believe I’m improving.”

Grateful for the distraction, Erik turned to regard Charles’s newest masterpiece. He’d meant it to depict an Autumn harvest, with a misshapen pumpkin, muddy-looking grapes, pears, tomatoes, and onions, all with wildly inconsistent light-shines, spilling from a cornucopia, which resembled a blocky, two-dimensional shoe.

Erik tapped his chin and considered it for a long moment, making appropriate humming noises as Charles tried not to let his impatience show.

“Well?!”

Erik adopted his most blank, unreadable expression, replying blandly, “It’s superb, Charles. I hadn’t realized you’d reached the abstract period of your art career so soon.”

Charles frowned, a furrow forming between his brows. “It’s not abstract...”

“It’s not?”

Erik slipped. A tiny smirk weaseled its way free of his tight stoicism. Charles seized upon it and scowled, face reddening, pointing an accusing finger at Erik’s chest.

“Ooh — Erik _Lehnsherr—!_ Just you wait; I’ll paint _you_ next!”

“Oh, don’t; the world is already frightened of me.”

He laughed when Charles took a half-hearted swat at him; embarrassed and pouting, yes, but also fighting a grin of his own. Giving one another a hard time kept the magic alive, Erik supposed.

“Just terrible. The worst friend. I loathe you utterly.”

He swatted at Erik’s chest again. This time, Erik caught his hand, smiling fully. He circled his thumb over the blue-green veins in Charles’s wrist.

“And I you, kochanie,” he promised warmly — so warmly, in fact, that Charles _felt_ it; felt the barrage of affection pounding from Erik’s side of their door. The radio static ever buzzing between them amplified tenfold.

It was nothing, glorious nothing, to hook a knuckle under Charles’s chin, tilting his face up and bending low over him. It’d been years since Erik had last thought about kissing anyone; longer still since he’d _done_ something about it. And even that couldn’t compare to kissing Charles, both as youths and now, natural as the final two puzzle pieces snapping into place.

Charles sighed. The sound seemed to go on and on; an ache, a moan — borne equally of pain and pleasure; of decades of loneliness and longing. He shut his eyes tight and wrapped both arms around Erik’s neck.

He tasted of very little. Perhaps a hint of toothpaste, or the lactose-free milk they purchased for breakfast cereal. Though he always shaved his face smooth, he’d missed a spot beneath his jaw that morning. That tiny rasp of stubble anchored Erik to earth.

Erik parted the door — now only a sheer curtain, fine as spider’s silk — between their minds, intending to seek permission to lift Charles from his chair, to carry him to the sofa and investigate his slightly chapped lips more thoroughly. _What a pleasant distraction this was turning out to be!_

All was abruptly lost when Charles recoiled, both mentally and physically. Concrete and barbed wire replaced the spider’s silk. Not even their combined radio static could escape a door so thick.

He stared at Erik, eyes accusing, as though he’d committed some terrible crime.

“I—” Erik floundered for words. In his bewilderment, the finer points of the English language had, however temporarily, deserted him. “Why? I _know_ you want me!”

It would take an idiot to mistake Charles Xavier’s desire for anything else. His lingering, appreciative glances stroked Erik’s vanity. The way he colored so prettily at every innuendo, every flirtation…

Evidently, this was the wrong thing to say. There was _hurt_ in Charles’s eyes now. Seeing it made Erik feel guilty, which in turn made him defensive. He masked the uncertainty with anger.

“A simple ‘no’ would suffice, Charles,” he snapped. “There’s no need to act as though I’m _diseased.”_

Charles endured Erik’s vitriol without batting an eyelash. Looking down at his meekly folded hands inhis lap, he said only, “I’ve a headache. I think I’ll go to bed early tonight.”

Gathering his fallen dignity and his painting from the floor, Charles returned to his bedroom, shutting the door quietly behind himself. A moment later, the creak of springs sounded as he transferred himself from wheelchair to bed.

Throwing himself moodily into the abandoned kitchen chair, Magneto swore irritably to himself. The sweet smell of cooking apples seemed to mock him.

* * *

**Day 134**

“For such an old guy, you sure are stupid. Haven’t you learned _anything_ by now?”

Magda lounged with her head in Erik’s lap, wearing a pair of Erik’s pajama bottoms and absolutely nothing else. Her pregnant belly was enormous; a distended egg of unhatched twins.

“How am I stupid?” Erik asked, relaxing into the patchy sofa that’d come with their old home. By force of habit, he reached for a tub of lotion and scooped some onto his palm, holding it there to warm before massaging wide circles onto Magda’s rock-hard stomach.

She sighed, lounging. “Well, for one thing, you’re rubbing my tummy instead of my ankles.”

Erik snorted, flinching out of the way in time to avoid a mouthful of frizzy Magda-hair as she laboriously sat up and turned around, planting her feet into his lap instead. She had pretty feet, even when they were painfully swollen from pregnancy. He lifted one and dutifully dug his thumbs into her ankle-bones.

“I can paint your toes,” he offered, observing the chipped polish there. Towards the end of her pregnancy, she’d been unable to even tie her shoes and had worn slippers everywhere instead. “What was your favorite color again? Maroon?”

“Burgundy. And don’t change the subject. Nobody likes to feel disposable, Erik.”

He cocked his head. “Have I made you feel disposable?”

She poked him in the chest with her big toe, her attractive mouth pulled into a frown. “You know who I’m talking about. Quit pretending.”

He did. He wished he didn’t. He slipped a hand up Magda’s chest instead, palming a breast. She rolled her eyes, but didn’t push him away. “You should apologize to Charles.”

“Men don’t work that way. We don’t need to apologize.”

 _“Stupid_ men think they don’t, maybe.” She glared at him. To soften the expression, he lifted her foot higher and kissed the inside of her calf, glancing at her face to gauge her reaction. She didn’t seem opposed to the offer, so he climbed higher.

Just as he was about to improve her evening (getting physical was ever so much more pleasant than discussing his feelings and failures), Magda suddenly doubled over, planting both hands on her belly, then looked at her partner in rapturous excitement. “Oh, Erik, he’s kicking!”

Erik looked at Magda’s stomach, at the slight bulge that’d just appeared above her navel: Pietro’s tiny foot, visible even through her skin. The question of how they both knew it to be Pietro, and not Wanda, did not occur to him.

Erik touched the bump with light fingers, tapping the sole of Pietro’s foot.

“Say something to your son!” Magda urged, dark eyes shining. She’d been all about talking to her belly, insisting the twins could hear her, even if they didn’t understand what she was saying. Doing so made Erik feel self-conscious — the culture around being pregnant had changed a _lot_ since he’d been a child — but tried his best to appease her.

He continued touching that foot, tracing its shape. “Hello Pietro,” he greeted. “One day, you will run far on these feet we’ve made for you. You will be such a magnificent creature.”

“That’s right!” Magda agreed, nodding. “You will run so fast and far that nobody will catch you. One day you’ll drop to your knees and beg your father for mercy, and then you will use those feet to run far, far away from him. Maybe you won’t ever come back!”

Erik startled, looking away from Magda’s belly and back into her eyes. She watched him gravely, expression blank. Then, in their son’s voice, she asked, “Did you ever even love me?”

* * *

**Day 170**

Despite Erik’s insistence that they were too far away from town to expect any trick-or-treaters _(“And_ _besides; Halloween isn’t as big an event here as it is in the states,”)_ Charles still insisted on purchasing candy and decorating their barn.

“I’ve read all about it!” he declared proudly. “Polish children are more interested in Halloween than they used to be. It’s a result of all the American television they watch. You’ll see.”

Erik rolled his eyes. They were living in an isolated barn in the woods and, though people in town had become familiar with them from their regular shopping trips, that didn’t mean their home was a local hotspot. But there was no dissuading Charles when his mind was made up. Let him see for himself, then.

It wasn’t as much fun watching Charles’s disappointment as Erik had thought it would be, as the night wore on and no trick-or-treaters arrived. After a mumbled excuse to check on the garden, Erik grabbed his coat — it was a much colder Autumn than the area typically received — flicked on the porch lights, and stepped into the night.

He groaned aloud when he immediately noticed the last of the strawberries, shriveled as they were, had been stolen right off the vine. It was no challenge to figure out who’d committed the theft — the hoofprints in the cold-firmed dirt told the whole dastardly tale. Deer again; no doubt trying to gain weight before winter struck. Damned vultures. People only liked them because they were pretty. _They’d_ never had their hard work so carelessly destroyed by hungry mouths and stomping hooves!

Erik followed the hoofprints as far as they would go; out of his garden and past the tree-line. Once there, the fallen leaves obscured many of the prints, but left another trail of their own. Every broken stem or crushed leaf led Erik deeper. Over there was a trail of scat, then a tree whose bark had been damaged by scraping horns. Erik was no tracker, but this was an easy trail to follow. If he could just pinpoint where the varmints _lived—_

It drove all thoughts of deer from his mind when he unexpectedly faced a lone human child, curled like a foundling at the base of a tree with her face buried in her knees. She was perhaps five or six years old, dressed in a sheer green dress with fairy wings sewn onto the back, and glittery slip-on shoes inadequate for a trek through the woods. At Erik’s approach, she stiffened and looked at him fearfully, face crusted with dried tears and nose-run. Charles was right after all: they _had_ gotten a trick-or-treater. A lost, freezing one; frightened as an animal in a trap.

The two regarded one another. When Erik took a step towards her, she climbed from her shivering huddle on the ground and pushed deeper into the trees.

He stopped moving. So did she.

“What is your name?” Erik asked, when the silence grew too vast.

She looked to the woods behind her, and then forward again, at his barn; invitingly warm and bright. “I’m not s’posed to talk to strangers,” she answered, voice trembling — whether from cold or fear, he couldn’t say. Perhaps both.

Erik sighed. No, she wasn’t. The world wasn’t like when he was a boy, when it had been perfectly acceptable to talk to just about anyone — oh, people still committed crimes, but the world remained blissfully unaware of how dark a night could become.

“I understand,” he said cautiously, wishing Charles was with him. He was much better at communicating with children, even when he couldn’t understand their language. “But it is cold, and dark, and I’m certain your parents are worried about you.”

When this garnered no response he added, “my name is Erik.”

He could tell that she was still wondering whether to run. He wouldn’t blame her if she did; he was tall, and imposing and unfamiliar. If she ran, he wasn’t so stupid as to chase her down. No, if she ran, he’d go into town instead to alert the _policja_ of where he’d found her, and hope she didn’t encounter boars or elk or even wolves — he heard their howls sometimes, late at night or early in the morning — in his absence.

In the quiet night it was far more likely that she’d trip and fall into the stream, hit her head, or become so lost that nobody would find her; not until the frost had stolen the fragile spark of her life. Already she shivered, face clammy, lips blue. Weather fluctuated wildly this time of year, and she wasn’t dressed for it.

Erik stripped off his coat and set it on the ground, then took several reassuring steps away from her. “There’s a phone inside you can call your family on,” he said gruffly, and then took a gamble by turning his back and walking away.

The relief he felt when he heard her cautious footsteps behind him was immense. If he’d had to go into town empty-handed and report what he’d found, he — the Jewish “foreigner” suspected by most to be gay, and therefore “deviant” — would not have looked good; especially not to people like the grocer who’d accosted him months prior. And if they found her dead so close to his home, well…

History had long since told him where fingers would point in a witch-hunt. They would investigate him. They would unearth his identity as Magneto. That would be the end of his and Charles’s cozy little break from reality. He supposed he should feel ashamed for thinking about a child’s life in such coldly calculating terms, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop. This was the reality he lived in.

 _Charles,_ he called as he let himself into the barn, leaving the door unlocked behind him. _I found a girl in the woods. Please do something._

Charles, who’d been setting a fire in the grate, looked up in puzzlement. **A girl?**

As though to answer his question, the child, swimming in Erik’s coat, pushed open the screen door and peeked inside. She looked around with fear and hope warring in her expression. In this light, she looked even worse than before; her hair full of leaves, her arms scratched by brambles, her knee bruised from a fall. A few threads had torn and dangled from one of her fairy wings. It was a pitiful sight.

“Oh!” Charles exclaimed, and her wide brown eyes fixed on his face. She shrank back. Charles put his palms up in a universal ‘I-mean-no-harm’ gesture, and clumsily asked whether she spoke English.

Within minutes of Charles working his magic, she sat on their sofa, warmed by the little fire, their wireless landline telephone held like a lifeline in her lap. Charles ruefully offered her the entire bowl of candy, explaining — with Erik acting as interpreter whenever her limited English and Charles’s poor Polish required nudging — that she was the only trick-or-treater they’d had that night.

“Aleksandra,” Charles repeated the name she’d given him, a friendly twinkle in his eye. “That’s nice. Do your friends call you ‘Allie’?”

“Sandra,” she corrected, fiddling with a hole in her dress.

“Ah,” he nodded. “I’ve never had a nickname myself. Well, one of my friends calls me ‘Chuck,’ but only to be a nuisance.” He wrinkled his nose in distaste.

Sandra giggled, a grubby hand covering her mouth. “Chuck...”

“Don’t encourage him,” Erik grumped, but felt pleased. The girl’s parents would arrive soon, and then she’d be out of their hair. Charles was accustomed to working with kids and, despite his flaws, was much better at interacting with them than standoffish, awkward Erik could ever hope to be.

 _He should have been a father; not me,_ Erik thought, and then wished he hadn’t when Charles glanced at him in surprise.

He _really_ wished he hadn’t thought such a thing when Charles said, “Erik has two children of his own.”

Sandra turned to look at Erik, her previous fears forgotten. “Are they little, like me?”

“They are older,” Erik replied, and mentally cursed Charles, who only smiled and sipped his tea.

“Do you have any pictures of them?” Sandra asked.

_Damn it, Charles…_

**Well,** **_do_ ** **you?**

“I do.”

“May I see them?”

He’d liked her better when she’d been too afraid to speak to him. Without a word, he made for the staircase and entered his sparse bedroom. He contemplated staying up there until her parents came to take her away.

**Now you’re just being childish.**

_Sod off, Charles._

Mental laughter was difficult to explain to anybody who’d never communicated via telepathy, but it burbled in Erik’s head like a filter in an aquarium. The professor was enjoying his discomfort too much.

In the otherwise empty bag he’d stored in his closet, there was a single brown envelope; a bubbler mailer, though it’d never been addressed or mailed anywhere. It curled and wrinkled with age and wear. Pouring it out onto his pillow, Erik prodded through sleeves of old Polaroids; dusty things he hadn’t touched in years. There were dates written on them in a spiky, unfeminine handwriting that was nevertheless all Magda.

He found the photo-sleeve he sought and returned downstairs with it, if only to prove to Charles that he _wasn’t_ childish, thank you very much. Dropping it onto the empty cushion beside Sandra, he crossed to the kitchen and dropped the kettle onto the stove.

“Oh!” Sandra exclaimed, with the delight of a little girl that loved all things dolly. “Babies!” He heard the rustle as she flipped through the entire stack, laughing at the many bad photos where Magda had stuck her thumb too close to the camera lense. “They are small,” she marveled. “My sister was never so small.”

“Twins have to be,” Charles explained in his best teacher’s voice. “There’s two of them made inside one belly.”

“Is this their mama?” she asked a moment later, showing one picture to Charles.

“Oh, yes, that’s Magda. Wasn’t she lovely?”

“Where is she now?”

Erik set mugs and a box of biscuits onto a tray, hunting noisily through the cupboards for teabags so he wouldn’t have to hear Charles’s reply.

Sandra’s eyes were sad when Erik carried the tray to the table and sat it down on the coffee table. She looked at him with sympathy, so he quickly turned his attention away from her and back onto Charles. “I think I will head to bed early, so—”

A knock at the door interrupted him.

Zuzana, Sandra’s mother, was a petite woman with dirty-blonde hair and quite a lot of freckles. At the sight of her daughter, she let out a wordless exclamation and dropped to her knees right there in the carpeted doorway, her arms outstretched. Within moments, both parent and child were sobbing.

“Aleksandra!” she kept repeating in rapid, scolding Polish that Charles had no chance of following. “Oh, you bad, bad girl; don’t ever do that again! Mama was so so so scared, _so scared_ —”

Actions of love offset her harsh words; her hands gently stroking, her mouth pressing kiss after broken kiss to face, hair, hands.

Sandra clung to her mother, making tremulous, half-formed promises and apologies. They rocked together, a pile of grief and relief. It was a private family moment that Erik somehow couldn’t bring himself to look away from. It made something inside his chest ache; hollow and lonesome.

In halting bursts, Sandra explained the evening’s events to her mother; how she’d gotten separated, hopelessly lost from her group of friends and, eventually, found by Erik. Zuzana peered curiously over her daughter’s head at the two men watching them.

Finally, the woman stood and crossed the room, standing before Erik, who had no clue what to expect from her. When she at last pressed a small hand to his face, pulling, he allowed her to bring him down. Her lips against his cheek shook like leaves in the wind.

 _“Thank you,”_ she breathed, as though incapable of speaking any louder.

Long after Sandra and Zuzana had left, after he had cleared away the undrunken tea, after Charles bade him goodnight, as the fire died in the grate for lack of fuel, Erik remained still, perched on the arm of their sofa. He hadn’t smoked since the forties; not since scientists had discovered that perhaps cigarettes _weren’t_ as beneficial to the lungs as once believed. Yet still he felt a strong, rare urge for a drag now.

He knew he should take his coat and his photographs and retire upstairs for some sleep, but somehow didn’t want to touch either item. His gaze kept returning, again and again, to the stack of old photos on the cushion — particularly to the topmost picture. It featured himself napping, shirtless, in bed with two diapered infants sleeping peacefully atop his chest.

Looking at the grainy, sepia-toned image, Erik found the hollow feeling from before ringing louder than ever. It knocked at the door of his mind. _Let me in,_ it whispered; an incessant hum with all the subtlety of a battering ram. _Trick or treat, Erik. Aren’t you ready to let me in yet?_

* * *

**Day 181**

Winter came fast. One night it was simple, lovely Autumn; the trees a blaze of golds and reds. The next, Charles woke shivering; his customary two blankets no longer sufficient to keep out the chill. Frost pressed icy fingers to his bedroom window and, when he wheeled his chair closer to breathe heat on the glittering fractals, they ran like tears into the new rain gutter.

 **Erik?** Charles tried, chilled in more than just his body. **Are you awake?**

There was no answer. Charles didn’t press again. There was no emergency, and Erik was such a light sleeper it was kinder not to pester him. He found extra blankets on his own, and was proud when he properly set up the space heater by himself, too. In minutes, his room was again the level of cozy he preferred.

Laying back in bed, he again sent feelers upstairs to Erik, peeking into his dreams. Unless they were “loud” nightmares, he left Erik be. But dreamwalking — consensual dreamwalking, anyway — was always an interesting insight into the minds of his comrades. Or at least entertaining.

There wasn’t much to see in the tightly wound chambers of Erik’s mind tonight.

There were tall walls and brightly lit granite floors that brought to mind a public school of some kind, but rather than posters or clocks, the walls were covered only in barbed wire. Students in old-fashioned school uniforms wandered the halls, their heads hanging, their feet plodding to a heavy rhythm as they walked; a single, steady, many-footed heartbeat of sound.

Charles was unsurprised to find the Avalanche amidst the other students. Erik dreamed of him often. At least in this dream his face and skull were intact — Charles could do without all the horror movie special effects. But the miserable expression on his face was almost as bad.

“I did something unforgivable,” Erik said, his voice echoing, easily audible even in the crowded space. Charles looked around until he found his old friend standing motionless against the wall, barbed wire catching in his jacket, made conspicuous by being so much older than everyone else. He wasn’t looking at Charles, but instead watching the students — prisoners? — march without deviation.

“What did you do, Erik?” Charles asked, pushing through the crowd to stand before him. Erik’s gaze did not leave the back of Lance’s head.

“I harmed a child under my protection. I did so knowingly. I believe there is something wrong with me. Perhaps I’ve been rotting inside for a long time.”

He spoke emotionlessly, but when Charles looked closely at Erik’s blank face, he saw two tracks of tears streaming endlessly down his cheeks. He was a lifeless waterfall; a statue of a man.

“You feel guilty,” Charles surmised. “Perhaps saying so aloud would help you. Perhaps an apology—”

Erik held his arm up. His sleeve was red from dripping, fresh blood. He pulled it back to show Charles the wounds Logan had left on him; shredded, wrinkly skin that would never again be dry. “It won’t stop,” Erik explained calmly. “I did something unforgivable, you see.”

Slightly above the bleeding wounds sat Erik’s tattoo; numbers and letters inked into his unwilling body so many decades prior. As Charles stared, they glowed hot, raised with indigo fire.

###

Neither of them slept well. When Charles emerged, bedraggled, to put the kettle on, he found Erik lying, long and still, on the sofa with a damp flannel over his eyes. The way he posed — toes pointed up, arms folded over his chest — reminded Charles of a mummy in a sarcophagus, or Dracula in his coffin.

“Headache?” Charles inquired, reaching higher than was comfortable for the plastic basket of medication.

“Something like that. Don’t bother; I’ve already taken painkillers.”

“Who says I’m getting the basket for you? My back is stiff all over.”

Erik lowered his flannel to peer at Charles. “It must be the change in the weather,” he mused, watching his companion fill his palm with water from the sink, using it to swallow his pills down. The gesture was eerily reminiscent of morning hangovers following youthful misdeeds.

“Getting old is not for the faint of heart.” Charles emphasized this statement by stretching, wincing at the popping noises his joints made.

Erik winced. “Oh, stop. That’s ghastly. Come here?”

Curiosity drove Charles towards him. The coffee table would have prevented him access, but with just a nudge of his powers, Erik had it scooting away from the sofa to make way for Charles’s chair. Erik sat up, propping himself on one elbow, and reached out. “May I?”

There was no harm in it. Charles rolled backwards until wheels touched leather, and felt Erik’s hands come to rest on his shoulders, thumbs nested in the dip on the back of his neck.

“This might hurt,” Erik warned. “I know how much of a baby you are. Stop me if it’s too much.”

Charles pouted. Just because he didn’t enjoy being in discomfort didn’t make him weak. It made him reasonable! But he nodded all the same, and closed his eyes when large hands set to kneading the skin of his back, finding knots and working them out one at a time. Erik was so warm. Damn his functional circulatory system! Some people had all the luck.

He cried out only once, when Erik was too rough on a spot below one shoulderblade, and Erik softened his efforts, a hand stroking Charles’s neck in nonverbal apology. “This would be easier if you’d get on the sofa with me,” he suggested. “I can’t reach your lower back with you sitting like that.”

Charles opened his eyes, hesitant. He remembered, though he tried not to think about it, the way Erik had kissed him several months back. Erik must have caught the gist of his anxiety, because his expression shuttered, and he dropped his hands.

He made to return to his prone position, but Charles had already turned around, pushing Erik’s long legs to the side. He gripped the arm of the sofa and levered himself from his chair to a seated position on the cushion, uncomfortably aware that the oversized slacks and sweater he wore weren’t his best look.

He leaned against Erik’s side, and both mutants pretended not to notice the sudden charge in the static between them. Erik reached into his pocket and drew out a palmful of hardware nails, holding them in the center of his palm until the metal melted and the liquid coated his fingers and wrist like a very thin, very dexterous glove, or a second skin. Then it — and Erik’s hand — audibly vibrated.

Charles felt his face heat. “That’s a new trick,” he observed, voice only a little hoarse.

Erik smiled enigmatically and reached to rub low on Charles’s spine.

* * *

**Day 190**

“A great inspiration struck me last night. I painted your deer; the one you murdered. Look, here’s her skinless corpse hanging from a tree, and there’s you, brandishing a spear...”

“Interesting. I don’t remember there being so much blood at the scene.”

“Call it artistic license. Do you love it, or do you _love_ it?!”

“I think we should call an exorcist.”

“Now you’re just being hateful.”

* * *

**Day 194**

The day began well enough; with Erik fussing in his garden and Charles sat nearby, bundled in his jacket and hat, reading a novel and sneaking covert peeks at the bunched muscles of Erik’s back and shoulders.

_I know what you're doing._

**I'm not doing anything!**

Erik's laughter was a lovely sound. So distracting, in fact, that Charles almost missed the child’s approach up the winding forest path, her pink parka a bright splash of color against the gray sky and naked trees. “Chuck!”

That was all the warning he received before Sandra, tousle-haired and red-cheeked, barreled into his side. She dragged behind her a red wagon loaded with paper bags.

“Hello,” she panted, proud to show off her English. “I have apples and pumpkins.”

“Do you?”

She showed him, opening bag after bag brimming with home-grown apples, mottled calico in pinks and yellows and reds. The pumpkins were smaller; some no bigger than a fist. White, orange, yellow, and brown.

Erik stood and brushed his knees off and approached to look at them. _Cooking pumpkins._

**How thoughtful!**

“These are for us?” Erik asked in polite Polish, mentally translating for Charles’s benefit. Sandra nodded excitedly, just as Zuzana came into view.

The petite woman was breathing hard from the long walk, and from the extra weight strapped to her chest in the form of a baby roughly six months old. “I hope you don’t mind that we didn’t call first,” she said sheepishly. “I didn’t save your phone number.”

“It’s no trouble.” Like any old tomcat, Erik could charm a bird from its nest. He stood, and Charles knew by the way Zuzana’s eyes widened that she hadn’t realized before how handsome he was. “May I?”

Flustered, she allowed him to take her baby from its carrier. The child, androgynous and sleepy in its cuddly hood, gazed at him with complacent blue eyes.

“Aren’t _you_ a dear?” Erik cooed, and tucked it under one arm with a grandfatherly air. “To what do we owe this pleasure?”

“We wanted to thank you again for helping Aleksandra on Halloween,” Zuzana explained, smoothing her hair behind one ear and reaching for her oldest child, whom she linked her arms around the neck of. They had the same freckled noses. “But we thought it best to bring a gift, and our pumpkins weren’t ready to harvest until this morning.”

Charles smiled warmly, and Erik translated his words: “Won’t you come in for tea?"

###

Zuzana sat at their kitchen table, Sandra at her side, while Erik busied himself in the kitchen preparing refreshments. The woman had offered to take her baby back — her name, they learned, was Ewa — but Erik wouldn’t hear of it, keeping the little thing tucked under his arm and working one-handed.

“He must like babies,” Zuzana, this time translated by her daughter, beamed at Charles.

He had to concede that this was probably true. Erik struck him as the type who liked babies while they were tiny and doll-like, only losing interest once they could form opinions of their own.

Charles was the opposite. When they were still too small to support their own neck, they made him nervous.

“How long have you two been together?” she asked, and it took several moments for her meaning to sink in.

“Oh!” Charles exclaimed, face heating. “We aren’t 'together,' not _really—”_

Zuzana nodded, but he didn’t think she believed him. It would have been rude to peek into her mind and confirm.

“What happened to your legs?” Sandra asked, bringing one of her pigtails up to chew on.

“Aleksandra!” her mother scolded, pulling the hair from her mouth. “That’s impolite.”

Charles smiled, touching Zuzana’s hand in reassurance. “It’s alright. A child’s curiosity is harmless.”

He explained the condition of his body in a simple way Sandra could follow, then allowed her to sit on his lap and pilot his chair’s controls. She took them into the kitchen where Erik sliced apples (Charles noticed him quickly grabbing the knife carving fruit in midair before Sandra could see), steering with great care to avoid the walls.

Without a word, Erik handed the girl a slice of apple, cut so the peel resembled a rabbit’s pointed ears. Her delighted smile pleased him; Charles could tell. When Erik met his eyes, Charles couldn’t hide the softness in his own expression, either.

* * *

**Day 200**

Before the snow, there came a terrible rain; more hail than water.

It beat the sides of their barn something fierce; threatening the new windows in their frames. The howling wind screamed high and constant like a ghost seeking revenge.

Curled in his bed with a pillow over his head, Charles tried not to tremble. He could handle the bugs of this countryside living; the dirt roads; the lack of a city’s populus and comfort. But violent acts of God still rattled something inside of him, making him feel small and insignificant as a louse.

When, not for the first time, the large oil painting in the hallway fell from its hinges, Charles couldn’t help but cry out. His heart ached with how fast it pounded and, for a moment, he feared he might drive his own body into cardiac arrest.

_Are you afraid?_

How silly he must seem. He was a dignified, professional old man; aged with distinguished grace. He didn’t cower and weep at a little thunderstorm!

**I am terrified.**

_Oh, Charles._

**Please, Erik?**

He hated himself for this weakness. He knew once the storm — and his fear — had passed, his shame would be difficult to contain. But for now, for _now—!_

To his credit, Erik didn’t draw things out. It was only a minute or two before Charles heard his feet descending the stairs, then the creak of his bedroom door opening.

“I am here,” Erik said, looking at the pathetic shaking lump that was the great Charles Xavier. “What do you need me to do?”

**Come here!**

Erik didn’t even pretend to misunderstand. They were too old to argue, to play games. Either he would do it or he would refuse, and Charles could not have been more relieved when he chose the latter. The bed dipped underneath Erik’s weight.

“It’s only a storm. This barn has survived a hundred, a _thousand_ of these before.”

**But what if this is one storm too many? What if the barn breaks? What if it cracks like an egg and we freeze to death inside?**

The way the walls and ceiling and windows creaked, it seemed all too likely.

_You forget who I am, Charles. You forget what I can do. You think I can’t hold a barn together?_

The next deafening clap of thunder had Charles lurching into Erik’s chest as though attempting to escape destruction in the mutant’s arms.

Erik held him. _Have you always been so afraid?_

**The fear grows stronger every year. Perhaps I’m going mad.**

Erik’s palm, callused and warm, cradled the back of Charles’s bald head, slowly warming him. Charles pulled the edge of the blanket back and, without hesitation, Erik slipped beneath it. They curled together like children at summer camp, pleasantly spooked after a night of campfire stories.

“You are _such_ a city boy,” Erik sighed.

“Keep me safe?” Charles asked, and hated himself for it, a little, but refused to take it back.

“Well, I’m hardly about to abandon you in the middle of the woods, Charles. You can’t even open a jar without my help.”

“That was _one time,_ and you didn’t answer my question.”

Freezing rain lashed the windows. Warmed by his blankets, and by Erik pressed so close, the fog of fear that had trapped him felt easier to bear.

_Always._

* * *

**Day 201**

They woke the first of December to a barn muffled by snow, cheek-to-cheek on Charles’s softest pillow. After the violent storm the night before, this calm silence felt almost eerie. It was like the rest of the world had drowned, and only they remained.

For a moment, Charles could only gaze at the sleeping face of his worst enemy, his dearest friend, the one and only love of his life. He touched the fine wrinkle between Erik’s brows with his thumb, attempting to smooth it out. Erik’s hand rose and took his, but didn’t push him away.

 _What are you doing?_ Erik asked, more asleep than awake.

 **Loving you,** Charles replied, because there was no point in pretending otherwise. **The same as I’ve been doing since first I met you.**

Erik didn’t have a reply to that. He didn’t fall back asleep, but he didn’t move away, either. “If you love a monster, doesn’t that make you one, as well?” he asked, breath warm on Charles’s neck.

Charles snorted, fingers carding lightly through Erik’s silvery hair. “So melodramatic. Of course I’m a monster, darling. Did you ever think otherwise?”

Erik opened his eyes. In them, Charles saw the world.

“Oh, we are foolish,” the younger mutant sighed, feeling his heart ache again. “We go around decade after decade, fighting and making up and fighting once again. We get so lost, my love.”

_I never meant to make you suffer._

Charles sighed, because that was both truth and lie. **What a mess we are.**

He rolled onto his side, and Erik rolled with him, pressing against Charles’s back until they nestled like spoons in a drawer. Only after Charles reached and drew the curtain from the window did they see the foot of clean snow, smoothing and softening the forest’s edges.

“My _garden,”_ Erik moaned. It had been blanketed entirely; erased from sight.

**We can dig it up.**

_If the snow didn’t kill it already._

Charles reached for Erik’s hand, pulling the heavy arm around his neck like a scarf. Erik huffed, but obligingly propped his chin on Charles’s shoulder.

“Oh, fantastic,” he grouched when a knobbly-kneed doe tiptoed from the tree-line to investigate the remains of the garden. Her breath frosted the air and her hooves left divots in the otherwise perfect snow. They both saw ribs beneath her dun hide. Winter had not been kind. _“Just_ what we need.”

“She isn’t hurting anything,” Charles argued, when she touched her nose to the few tomato leaves still clinging to the trellis. “Let her have this.”

Erik grumbled, but offered no other protest. They remained like that, watching the doe, until the snow fell again.

* * *

**Day 225**

Zuzana had invited them to celebrate each night of Hanukkah with her family, but they compromised by only spending the first and final night together, so as not to overstay their welcome.

Still, it was pleasant, this. It was the most social the two old men had been since leaving the states, though few English speakers were present. Charles was looking a little puzzled. Erik made a mental note to crack down on improving the man’s Polish.

That everyone at these little house-parties assumed them to be a couple had been irritating at first, but Charles had mentally sighed a tired, **just go with it. Thou doth protest too much, methinks.**

Well, whatever. These humans didn’t seem bothered by it, so why should Erik care what they thought? He and Charles had enjoyed shopping together for small gifts to give Sandra. There was lively music, to which she danced with her cousins.

And the food! _Oh,_ the food. Artichoke soup, and beef brisket, and walnut-stuffed challah. Homemade latkes dripping with golden honey, and sufganiyot that left telltale smears of powdered sugar on their lips... Erik put away more hamantaschen than was proper and resolved to exercise vigorously in the upcoming weeks. He’d put on a pound or ten since moving to the barn.

Zuzana had strung fairy lights in the apple trees that surrounded her property, lending a warm glow to the place, yet even that paled compared to Uncle So-and-so retelling the story of the Maccabees’s rebellion and lighting the menorah, surrounded by enraptured children. There were too many people present to be orderly, but stanzas of Maoz Tzur cropped up here and there, warbling in tipsy jubilation. When Erik sang along in his deep voice, Charles watched him fondly.

Somebody produced a pocketful of dreidels, and a playful competition for gelt began. Sandra, hopped up on celebration and sugar, approached their table and tugged on Charles’s hand. “Come see my room!” she insisted, in the bossy way children do.

He smoothed a strand of loose hair behind her little ear. “I’m afraid I can’t, darling.”

She looked at the wheels of his chair, then at the stairs, and her smile fell in disappointed understanding. “Oh...”

“Perhaps Erik will?” Charles offered, glancing hopefully at his companion, and Sandra’s smile returned tenfold. Well, there was nothing for it. Erik stood and allowed the girl to drag him by the sticky hand through the crowded living room and up a winding staircase, the walls papered with crayon drawings and kindergarten art projects.

Once inside her and Ewa’s messy bedroom, Erik oohed and awed over each toy and book she handed him, reflecting with nostalgia back to when Wanda had been this age. At last Sandra passed him a framed photograph of herself between two adults: Zuzana to the left and a thin, dark-haired man on her right.

This much younger Sandra was holding each of their hands and beaming, gap-toothed and sandy-faced, at the camera. The beach in the background and the swimwear the trio wore told a tale of a family’s summer vacation.

“Is that your father?” Erik asked, nodding at the man. He realized belatedly that he’d never seen him before; that it was only ever Zuzana and her daughters who visited his barn.

Sandra nodded, popping the stringy end of a pigtail into her mouth to chew. “Tatuś and mama fought a lot,” she confessed, voice hushed, eyes downcast. “He left before Ewa was born.”

Erik sighed. Parents sometimes left; it was a fact of life. His _own_ parents... Well. They hadn’t _left._ They would _never_ have left him if they’d had a choice. The situations weren’t comparable at all.

“He’ll come back someday!” Sandra insisted, taking her picture from Erik and setting it down on a bookcase with a care she hadn’t shown any other object. “And then we can play and go places like we used to, and mama won’t cry anymore.”

“Do you _want_ him to come back?” Erik asked. This was why he preferred babies to children. It was much better to leave kids be; to let them figure out life on their own terms, and approach again only when they could behave like rational, intelligent creatures.

Sandra blinked at him like he’d completely lost his marbles. “Of course I want him to come _back,”_ she said derisively, hands on her scrawny hips. “He’s my tatuś. I’ll wait forever and ever for him. As long as it takes.”

* * *

**Day 226**

It was almost too dark to see, and it was raining.

Pietro held the flashlight, because Erik’s arms were too full of his limp daughter to manage it. It’d taken only a little cold medicine in her nightly glass of milk to send her off to dreamland. In all this rain, she felt heavier than the fifty-two pounds of her last physical checkup.

“Tatuś?” Pietro called nervously, when his father caught up to him at the edge of the driveway. Good Lord; his eyes were enormous. “Tatuś, I don’t want Wanda to go away.”

Erik ignored his son. The boy still had a goose-egg on the back of his head from the last time Wanda used her powers to fling her twin against a wall. This unpleasant venture was for his benefit, too.

“Go to the car,” Erik ordered, and Pietro reluctantly obeyed, opening the back door without being asked and then walking around to the other side before getting in.

Erik bent to slide Wanda inside the vehicle, laying her carefully across the leather seats, her bare feet in her brother’s lap. She moaned quietly. Erik brushed the black, rain-wet hair from her feverishly warm face.

When she was asleep, it was easy to forget how powerful, how _dangerous_ she was. She looked like an innocent little girl like this. No; not just any little girl; _his_ little girl, with his strong chin and stronger opinions.

“I wish you hadn’t made me do this, tygrysku,” he sighed regretfully, and closed the door, popping his coat collar against the wind and rain. What followed was a long, silent drive, spanning many hours in near darkness. By the time they reached the asylum, Pietro had drifted off and Wanda was stirring awake.

She sat up, groggy and confused. Red sparks danced along her skin. Those reflections of color set off a Pavlovian response in the Lehnsherr-Maximoff household. Sparks meant violence and out-of-control tantrums. Even in his sleep, Pietro cringed.

“Tatuś?” Wanda asked in Polish — always Polish, though he’d urged his children to speak more English after they’d moved to the states. “What is happening? Where are we?”

“Shh,” Erik soothed, fingers tight around the steering wheel, eyes focused straight ahead. “You’re only dreaming. Close your eyes.”

As always, she refused to listen. Sitting up, she pressed against her brother like they were two foxes in a basket and watched the world outside with trepidation in her wide blue eyes.

“What is that building?” she asked distrustfully. “Who are those men walking out?”

Erik said nothing. Perhaps he should have given her a stronger dose of the medication, but he hadn’t wanted to damage her. Well, that’s what he’d had this asylum built and staffed for, wasn’t it? Now someone else would be in charge of disciplining, medicating, and protecting the impossible child. He had better things to do with his time.

The sparks on Wanda’s skin grew brighter. She raised her hands defensively. “The men are coming closer! Tatuś, don’t let them touch me...”

He could hear the fear in her voice. She knew something was wrong. “Shh,” he whispered again, and reached to take her hand. So long as she couldn’t directly point at a target, she couldn’t cause much damage. “It is alright.”

“No,” she said, voice small at first, and then growing into a scream. “No, no, _no!”_

Pietro startled awake as the back seat opened, and a man reached into the back seat, seizing his sister around the waist and lifting her from the car. In her nightgown, the child thrashed and howled, feral as a rabid animal. “Tatuś!”

Erik grit his teeth and did not react. This was for the best. This was for all of them. Herself, too. Here, she would be safe. Here, nobody would hunt her down like the weapon she was.

"Let go!” she begged as the two men carried her towards the asylum, still fighting, still struggling to break free. “Let me go, let _go!”_

With a cry, Pietro burst from the car, sprinting for his sister. Reacting without thinking, Erik used his powers to seize upon the bits of metal he’d sewn into his son’s clothing for exactly this purpose, dragging him back as he climbed from the car, arms outstretched. Pietro slammed spine-first into Erik’s chest. Erik held him crushingly tight.

“Do not cross me again,” he warned his son. Pietro sobbed, tiny shoulders quaking as he watched his twin, taken away from him; locked in a tower like a princess in the fairy tales he’d once loved.

Erik averted his gaze from the twins, looking instead at the windshield of his car. Much to his shock, it was not his own reflection he saw looking out at him, but Magda’s.

He stared into his deceased partner’s furious eyes. She was a fiery person, to be certain; quick to emotion, to passion, but he couldn’t remember ever seeing her so _angry_ before. She seethed with disgust and hatred, and she directed all of her rage solely towards him.

“What have you done to my babies?!” Magda roared, and struck with a mighty fist.

The windshield shattered and with it, the world. Colors melted into puddles; scents and sounds one by one disappeared. In his arms, Pietro crumbled to ash, blowing away in the gentlest of breezes.

“What—!” Erik exclaimed, looking around, grabbing for his son, who was no longer there. He was utterly alone in this vast emptiness, save only for a small square of light a long, long way off.

There was nothing to do but walk towards it, his footsteps echoing hollowly on unseen cement flooring. For step after step after hundreds of steps, nothing happened. The light seemed, if anything, further away.

When he finally reached it, it was with immense relief. It, too, was a window; this one looking into a bare room where a girl of perhaps twelve kneeled, her arms bound in a straightjacket. Her long black hair was a tangled matt obscuring her face, yet still he would know her anywhere.

“Of course I want my tatuś to come back,” Wanda told a lone ladybird inching its way across the floor of her cell. “I’ll wait forever and ever for him. As long as it takes.”

“Wanda!” Erik gasped and leaned to tap his knuckles against the window. “Wanda, it’s me. It’s tatuś!”

She couldn’t hear him. Erik rapped his fist harder until a great panic seized him; until he was beating on the thick plexiglass with both hands for all he was worth. Until his knuckles broke, and he streaked watery lines of his own blood across the surface. “Wanda! _Wanda!_ You must let me in!”

All at once, the weight of everything Erik had lost crashed upon him like a great wave. His daughter would grow up without him. She would grow and change and, eventually, be stolen away by another man, a better father. She would never call him ‘tatuś’ again. Never search for worms in the mud with him, or show him her school projects, or ask for his songs or stories or kisses goodnight—!

“Wanda,” Erik’s voice broke, and he wept, sinking to his knees, clutching at the windowsill with shaking, bloody fingers. “Oh, Wanda, oh my tygrysku, my dziewczynka. I can change; I can be a better man! Can’t you ever forgive me?”

“Erik!” Charles barked, shaking him hard, and the terrible nightmare popped like a soap-bubble. Erik was once more safe in Charles’s bed, his trembling hands clean of blood.

Erik looked up into the other man’s concerned face. The two monsters regarded each other, both shaken by the violently broken sleep. There was no sense in asking if Charles had seen his dream. Of course he had. He was _Charles._

Charles, braced on his arms above Erik’s prone body, reached a hand out and brushed tears off his best enemy, his worst friend, his dearest lover’s face. Erik gasped a wet, shuddery breath, then another.

“What have I done to my babies?” he sobbed.

For this, Charles had no answer. He settled back on his side and pulled his blanket to their chins, tucking his arm around Erik’s chest like he now did every night.

It was many hours before the flood of Erik’s tears trickled to a crawl and stopped entirely.

“Merry Christmas, old friend,” Charles whispered, and only then did Erik realize that he was crying, too.

* * *

**Day 261**

January drew to a close without incident. Erik woke on his birthday to more snowfall and the stink of burnt sugar from the kitchen.

The smell only grew stronger after he donned socks and a dressing robe and padded from Charles’s bedroom into the kitchen, where a spectacular mess awaited him. Technicolor batter smeared the counters. Preserves dripped down the fridge. A single smashed egg oozed over the floor. The charred remains of a baking dish smoked atop the stove — it was a miracle the alarms hadn’t gone off. He’d have to check their batteries.

Charles slumped over the kitchen table with a mug of coffee in hand that smelled strongly of whiskey, his head in his arms. At least he’d had the forethought to open the windows first.

“Were they selling TNT in the baking aisle?” Erik asked, bending to inspect the blackened crystals of what might have once been a cake.

“Shut up, Erik.”

Charles sounded miserable, and not entirely sober. Erik postponed the teasing and set to cleaning the mess instead.

“Might I ask what you were doing?”

“Oh, nothing.” Charles sat up just enough to sip his spiked coffee before flopping over again, dramatically enough that Erik could tell his pride was only bruised, and his grief was mostly for show. “Just trying to do something nice for your birthday, is all.”

Erik looked again at the calcified ruin of pastry. “You were making me a birthday cake.”

“Truly, you are a scholar.”

Erik dropped his dishrag and abandoned his scrubbing long enough to approach the table. _I’m going to turn your chair around. Stop me if you must._

Charles did not stop him. He pouted like a moody kitten when Erik took the mug from his hand and set it aside, then bent with his hands braced on the table, looking into Charles’s deep blue eyes. After a moment, Charles’s mood faded to curiosity, then interest.

**What is it?**

Erik leaned in and brushed the smallest of kisses to the corner of Charles’s mouth, tight-lipped because he hadn’t brushed his teeth yet. _Thank you, Charles._

A fetching shade of pink dusted Charles’s excellent cheekbones. He cleared his throat. “Yes, well.”

Erik pecked the other side of his mouth, then his nose. Charles’s pink cheeks heated to red.

“Was there anything you wanted to do today? I suppose I should have asked beforehand, but I meant to surprise you.”

“Consider me surprised. Perhaps after we clean up, we could go for a walk? You owe me a re-match after cheating so abysmally the last time we played chess.”

“I did not _cheat!”_

Erik laughed, bending further to touch their foreheads together. After a moment, Charles’s hand came to rest on the back of his neck. They remained close like that until birdcall from the open window sent them apart.

After some consideration, Charles tilted his face to kiss Erik softly on the mouth, morning breath and all.

* * *

**Day 286**

Erik enjoys it when Charles washes his hair for him, which works out well, as Charles likes being the one to wash it.

The older mutant reclines in the downstairs bathtub, steam curling around his olive skin, a single, long leg draped out of the tub, dripping a puddle onto the floor.

It’s a quiet process, pouring cupfuls of water over his head, shielding his eyes with a hand. Charles lathers the shampoo between his fingers and then works them into that thick head of hair, nails scratching lightly. Erik doesn’t purr, not out loud, but the way the static between their minds buzzes is reminiscent of a large cat.

Perhaps a few kisses get dusted onto Erik’s bare shoulders here and there. Tragically few know how freckled his skin really is, beneath his armor and helmet and cape. Charles hoards the secret like a jewel.

* * *

**Day 294**

They spent a day walking six miles through the woods because Charles had heard through the birdwatcher’s grapevine that a wild, short-eared owl _(Asio flammeus)_ had been spotted just south of the lake.

It took hours of searching, not helped at all because they were babysitting Sandra and Ewa for the afternoon while Zuzana saw a doctor. Erik carried the baby on his back. When Sandra grew tired, Charles took her on his lap.

It was pleasant at first. Though still crisply chill, the sun was high, and the snow had nearly melted away. The path was muddy at points, but Erik called out warnings when Charles needed to take care with his chair’s treads. They saw foxes and hedgehogs and what Erik said must be a badger’s den. When Charles heard Sandra’s stomach growl, they stopped for a picnic of sandwiches and tea.

After lunch, though, things took a turn for the worse. They spent a time wandering in circles, lost, and Ewa cried when a diaper change was needed. That was remedied easily enough, but the smell lingered. Mosquitos, dormant throughout the winter, were shrilling so close to the lakebed. Charles tucked the blanket from the basket under his chair around Sandra so she wouldn’t be bitten.

Erik was growing frustrated and annoyed. He said nothing, but his shoulders had gone stiff, and Charles could feel tension in all that static between them. It was only a matter of minutes before he demanded they return home. Such a shame... Seeing an owl like this in the wild, here of all places, was a once in a lifetime experience. Charles made to hide his disappointment, not wanting to set off one of Erik’s moods.

He forgot entirely his efforts as they rounded a bend and found their path blocked by a deadfall; at least thirteen feet of mossy nurse logs, wet and half rotted from recent rains. Look around as he might, Charles could see no way around the pile of logs. To the east, the land was too marshy, too muddy for travel. To the west, the standing trees grew too dense to navigate his chair through, and the grass too high. For a man in a wheelchair, this was a dead end.

“Oh!” Charles exclaimed, the sound forced out somewhere through his chest. He rubbed his face, fingertips just under his eyes, and took a deep breath.

Sandra was looking around anxiously, reaching for a pigtail to pop in her mouth. “What are we going to do?” she asked in a little voice; the baby voice she’d mostly grown out of, or so she thought. Being abandoned by a parent at a young age often led to moments of regression. “Can we—”

Raspy, barking birdcall interrupted her from the other side of the deadfall. _“Waowk, waowk, waowk!”_

“Oh!” Charles said again and held a hand to his suddenly pained chest. That was _Asio flammeus’s_ call; he knew it with absolute certainty, and it was agony. To come so close only to fail now was almost more than the scientist could bear. “Oh...”

Oh, dear. His eyes stung. Was he going to cry here, in front of the children? He hoped not.

Erik, always privy to the telepath’s innermost thoughts and feelings — the “door” between their minds, as Erik thought of it; a strange development that had existed between them for almost as long as they’d known each other — held still, his posture impeccable as always as he absorbed the worst of Charles’s anguish.

Then, without a word, he unfastened the buckles of the papoose, carefully drawing the sleeping Ewa off his back. He handed her to Charles, who was no more comfortable with babies now than he’d been before. He took her anyway, resting her in the crook of his arm.

Erik held his hand out to Sandra. “Come. I need you.”

Looking startled, Sandra did as asked, slipping off of Charles’s lap and taking Erik’s large hand in her own. They approached the deadfall, and Erik nudged the bottom nurse log with the toe of his boot, then kicked it to test how stable it was. It did not wobble or cave, so he lifted and set Sandra down on top.

“Climb,” he commanded. “I will not let you fall.”

Sandra was not the boldest of children, and she couldn’t know that if she stumbled, Erik would easily save her by the metal of her jacket zipper and the button on her pants, but he spoke with such authority she did not doubt him. She climbed the deadfall like it was a jungle-gym and, watching how the stacked logs held her slight weight, Erik followed.

It was slow going. The logs were rotting and unstable, and twice they had to reroute their path to one that could bear Erik’s weight. Charles startled when he heard a shriek from Sandra — he gathered from her thoughts that she’d touched a snake — but Erik was right there, a hand on her back, murmuring softly. “It’s a grass snake; see that yellow band ‘round its throat? It won’t hurt you...”

Only when they made it over the top and climbed down the other side did Charles realize he’d been holding his breath. He released it in a whoosh and looked down at Ewa, who had turned her face into his arm, likely because the setting sun hitting her eyes was irritating.

“I _know_ I should have stopped him,” he told her. “Your mother would be furious. But he’s so hard to argue with when he gets like this...”

That was a lie. He hadn’t argued with Erik because he hadn’t wanted to. Anyone who thought Charles was “better” than Erik was grievously misinformed.

Climbing down was easier than climbing up. Erik got to the bottom first, reaching up and plucking his guinea pig from the logs. He — and thus, Charles, as a passenger in his mind — stopped on the path and waited, heads tilted and eyes shut, until the bird called again.

_“Waowk, waowk, waowk!”_

They followed the sound. It did not take long. A 110cm owl, striped and feathered, in the naked crutch between branches of spruce did not precisely blend in. This wasn’t, after all, her native environment.

And it _was_ a ‘her,’ Charles saw on first glance. She was much too large to be the male of her species. Her golden eyes were enormous and deep-set, ringed by their telltale mascara fringes.

Erik relayed the information to Sandra, who stared with eyes almost as large. “She’s a girl?! She’s _beautiful!”_

And she was. _How_ she was. In God’s factory, He had drizzled intricate feathers of dark chocolate with caramel, and crafted fine boots of white candy floss; sweet until you noticed the wickedly curved talons just beneath.

The owl clicked her beak when she saw she had an audience. _“Waowk.”_

Sandra danced in place, clapping her hands, an enormous smile on her face. She pressed against Erik’s side, overflowing with wonder, unable to hold it all on her own and wanting someone else to share in it.

“Waowk!” Sandra echoed, her little voice loud in the clearing.

 **Thank you, old friend,** Charles thought, overwhelmed by the unexpected kindness of the gesture.

Erik offered the mental equivalent of a shrug. _It was nothing._

It was not ‘nothing.’

 **I love you, too,** Charles told him, and brushed a tear off his cheek.

* * *

**Day 337**

The house was far too silent come the end of April. Erik dusted off his helmet and wore it all day with no warning, and it took Charles too long to understand that it was the twins’ eighteenth birthday; the one-year anniversary since the destruction of their house.

He took his painting supplies outside, and waited for Erik to join him.

* * *

**Day 365**

Erik didn’t need an alarm to wake up early. He simply told himself what time he wished to wake, and thus it happened.

It was still dark outside as he very gently extricated himself from Charles’s arms, tucked the quilt snugly over the other man’s sleeping form, kissed his forehead, and crept upstairs to his own room.

He dressed silently in nice clothes and polished black shoes before heading back down, intending to wait for his ride outside, but stopped when he saw that Charles’s bedroom light was now on, and the groggy man was pulling a shirt on over his head.

“Charles, what are you doing? Go back to sleep!”

Charles popped his head from the neck-hole of his shirt and fixed Erik with an exasperated sigh. “If you honestly think I’d force you to go to her all by yourself, you’re mad.”

###

Oskar, a distant relative of Zuzana’s, was their driver. Erik had made the arrangements several days prior; had offered to pay the man gas money, and had been shot down.

“Friends help friends,” Zuzana had insisted, and when Erik called Oskar’s phone number, the man had agreed with her sentiment.

Erik had to admit this was much better than hailing a taxi to drive them. Oskar drove an old white pickup, in the bed of which they’d stowed Charles’s wheelchair. The vehicle was too high off the ground to make helping the professor inside easy, and Charles’s face had as Erik lifted him, but he’d ignored Erik’s offer to stay home, and it was too last-minute to hire a more accessible vehicle.

Despite his earlier protests, Erik was grateful for Charles’s company. His anxiety fluttered like moths in his stomach, causing him to feel vaguely nauseous. When Erik felt uncertain, he often lashed out. Charles’s presence kept him from taking his mood out on poor Oskar.

He’d brought flowers, digging them from his garden and wrapping the roots in burlap so he could plant them again beside her headstone. Purple hyacinths for sorrow. Bluebells for humility. Pink carnations for remembrance. Cyclamen for goodbye. They filled the truck with a gentle scent and, by the time Charles recovered from the indignity of being carted around like a doll —

_(I’m sorry. I didn’t plan on you coming with me. I would never lift you without your permission._

**I know, old friend. I know.)**

— they had crossed over to a part of town with which Erik was achingly, nostalgically familiar. They’d lived scarcely a handful of miles from this place for exactly one year, but Erik hadn’t dared cross the nonexistent border, until now. It was exactly as overwhelming as he’d thought it would be.

There was the coffee house where he’d first seen Magda’s face; had been smitten by her wicked smile and sparkling eyes. She was pure trouble, and he’d known and loved it on first sight.

They passed the gas station where the twins felt so grown-up spending their pocket-money on candy and soda after school, and then there was the school itself; tiny but loved, and still in good repair.

There was the hospital where the twins had been born; Wanda first, furious and screaming at her first breath; then Pietro, who’d been so still and silent and gray after the C-section they’d all believed him stillborn.

They passed the library and the bank and the firehouse and the synagogue and the grocery store and the Rabbi’s house; all nearly the same as when Erik had left; all steeped with memories; so many it hurt to breathe.

On passing the turn-in towards his old house, Erik shut his eyes tight and focused only on breathing. A quote from an old American novelist played on a loop in his mind: _‘He saw now that you can’t go home again — not ever. There was no road back.’_

Charles took his hand.

The cemetery was close to the small town’s synagogue, and closer still to an apple grove. The smell of blossoms carried in through the truck’s open windows, and once they stopped before the cemetery’s friendly wooden gate, all three men sat in silence to breathe it in.

“I’ll pick you gentlemen up in an hour,” Oskar promised.

Erik gave him a thin smile, swinging his long legs out the door, then collected the wheelchair and Charles. “Thank you. Your help is greatly appreciated.”

Oskar nodded and backed onto the dirt road, disappearing from sight.

It wasn’t a very crowded cemetery, but it was quite old. As they traveled on soft grass down rows of headstones — spaced wide apart so Charles’s wheelchair could easily pass through — they saw faint, faded dates etched as far back as the mid-1600’s.

There were apple trees here, too, though they only bordered the fence; likely so apples wouldn’t fall directly onto the headstones. From them came quiet birdcall, as though even the wildlife knew to sing respectfully in this peaceful place. Pink and white petals from said trees occasionally scattered in the wind, swirling ‘round their heels. Aside from the two of them, there was nobody living present. If they tilted their heads to listen close, Erik thought he could hear music from the synagogue.

Charles took his hand again when Erik knew they were close to Magda, so that he held one hand while Erik still carried his bag of flowers.

And there it was. Magda’s headstone. A perfect white rectangle tucked neatly between Lavinia Maximoff and Motshan Maximoff, her parents.

Erik and Charles stood looking down at it for a long, silent moment. _Magda Marya Maximoff._

“We named Wanda after her, you know,” Erik said, his voice sounding a little funny to his own ears. “Her middle name, I mean. ‘Marya’ is a family name, so.”

Charles nodded and gave Erik’s hand a squeeze. “It’s a good name.”

“It is, isn’t it?”

Perhaps Magda’s brothers Vano and Django were responsible for the well-tended grave’s upkeep. They’d doted on their sister in life, and had never approved of the strange old gadjo she’d taken for a lover. Erik couldn’t blame them. He’d known, then and now, that he’d never deserved a moment of Magda’s time.

If it wasn’t them, it could be any of Poland’s small population of Jewish Romas. They were a tight-knit community. A community Erik had been wrong to deny his children. By uprooting them to America, he’d isolated them from their people. He’d done it without a second’s thought to their wellbeing.

_I was so, so selfish._

If Charles caught wind of that thought, he didn’t argue with it.

Erik set his bag down on a bare patch of ground, then pulled a handkerchief out to spread down before kneeling onto it. Charles quietly watched as Erik got to work arranging the flowers.

 _I didn’t want to just leave them in a vase,_ he explained, slipping his gardening gloves on. _Perhaps this is unorthodox, but I don’t see the point if they’re just going to wither and die._

**It’s a lovely thought. It’ll attract butterflies.**

Charles seemed content to sit and wait, watching as Erik worked. Erik didn’t feel hurried at all, and that calmed him down a bit.

**Tell me something about her.**

What was there to say? She’d been beautiful, and funny, and had never taken guff from anyone. She’d always been quick with a joke, she swore like a sailor, couldn’t cook to save her life, and was blunt to a fault. She loved food, and she loved sex, and she loved to be held. Every feeling she felt was _big,_ and just watching her live so loudly made Erik feel like the world still held some color after all.

_She and Pietro were two peas in a pod. They liked to dress up and have ‘singing competitions.’_

Charles smiled at the mental image Erik offered, of mother and son wearing sparkly capes and circles of red lipstick ‘rouge’ on their cheeks, shaking their butts all around the living room to bad music videos.

**You love her.**

God bless him, Charles knew not to use past tense.

“I do.” Erik paused his digging to pat dirt around a carnation’s base. “And I never once told her.”

He continued working, biting hard on his lip. His heart was dangerously close to becoming ice again. It was the only way he knew how to handle feelings that threatened to crush him. He was not Magda. He did not know how to feel things too big to hold inside himself.

Charles regarded him, expression grave. “I think she knew anyway, old friend,” he replied, which was kind, but naively foolish.

“Well, there’s no way to know for sure, is there?” Erik forced a smile, and only realized he held a flower stem too tightly when he tore it in half, clear sap weeping between his fingers. “As always, I’m far too late to make any difference.”

* * *

**Day 366**

A year and a day from his arrival to the barn he now called home, Erik Lehnsherr wrote two letters, both addressed to Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. It wasn’t the correct address, he knew — the odd family had long since moved into their own house — but it was close enough. It would reach them eventually.

The first was addressed thusly:

> Lance D. Alvers
> 
> c/o Logan Howlett

The envelope contained a bank check featuring his signature below quite a lot of zeroes. The letter traveling alongside it was short and to the point:

> Mr. Howlett:
> 
> Having learned the extent of Mr. Alvers’s  medical expenses from C. Xavier’s tax statements, I’ve taken it upon myself to match the money spent. Though Mr. Alvers is now an adult and should spend this as he likes, I’d prefer you be involved in this decision-making process. Please secure a stable future for Mr. Alvers, however that may manifest for him.
> 
> I understand this in no way justifies or excuses the harm I’ve caused, but I hope this is taken as a token of good faith. Once I regain access to my overseas accounts, similar funding for the rest of the Brotherhood will follow. I have a responsibility to them that was never fulfilled, and I wish to make amends.
> 
> Hoping you are well,
> 
> E. Lehnsherr

The second envelope Erik addressed to Xavier’s school was much larger; a bubble mailer.

> To: Wanda M. and Pietro D. Maximoff

He filled it to the brim of much of what he’d retrieved from storage the day before. Sleeve upon sleeve of old photographs of cousins, aunts, uncles, family friends; as well as their matching, meticulously penned descriptors.

> This is your maternal great-grandmother Ethelinda “Lindy” Maximoff. She was present at your birth. I am still researching what became of her, and will let you know what I find.
> 
> This is your paternal grandmother Ewa “Evie” Eisner né Lehnsherr. She was murdered October 12, 1944 by nazi Sebastian Shaw in the Auschwitz ghetto.
> 
> This is your paternal grandfather Jakob Lehnsherr. I estimate him to have been killed between February and April of 1940.

It had taken him hours to write, and he’d found himself crying as he worked, undisturbed by Charles, who understood this was a project Erik had to do alone. It was too much weight for his heart to hold, though altogether it weighed less than twenty ounces. So many lives distilled into only a sentence or two, with more question marks than periods.

He’d hesitated before adding the sleeve of modern photographs; the same ones he’d shown to Sandra on Halloween. There were dozens, mostly blurry, of the recently born twins in the care of both their parents. This history was theirs, painful and heavy as it may be, and it was time he passed it on. 

Wrapped in tissue paper with the chain taped down so it would not tangle mid transit, was Magda Maximoff’s Magen David. It might be too much to hope Wanda would someday wear it, but she deserved the option. It was, after all, her birthright. 

Erik carried both envelopes tucked in his coat all the way to the post office; a store the size of a shoebox right beside the grocery shop he still avoided after the oranżada incident. 

Postage to New York was quite expensive, but Erik didn’t complain. The postal worker had just taken the envelopes from Erik’s hands when the tall man snatched them back. “Wait!” Erik exclaimed, fishing in his pockets for scrap paper and a dull pencil. “One more thing.” 

He hurriedly scribbled out a note: four sentences that he’d been thinking about nonstop for over a year now. He shoved the scrap into the bubbler mailer and sealed it before he could lose his nerve, then took a step back. 

“Very well,” he declared, feeling only a little foolish. “I’m ready now.” 

He felt a bit untethered, uncertain, as he left the post office; second guessing his actions, his motives. He’d likely just made another big mistake; had stirred up feelings in his children that would be negative. Maybe they wouldn’t open the envelope at all. Maybe they would hate him for reaching out, unwanted, as they tried to settle in their new life. 

Well. The deed was done. 

Erik stepped into the hated grocery store, pleased to see the red-faced cashier was not there, and killed time wandering the aisles while he tried to get his thoughts and feelings in order. He’d dove too deep into his past, and struggled now to resurface in the present. 

There was such a surplus of food here, matched by the heavy weight of coins in his pockets. His starving teenage self wouldn’t have been able to fathom a place like this even existed. That he got to live, now, surrounded by such easily accessible luxuries while so many had not burned within him. Survivor’s guilt, they called it. Once, he’d channeled his guilt into rage; had set to make the world suffer as he had. 

What was he supposed to do now? He felt perilously close to crying, disassociated from his own body, his own life, from time itself, and wished with vehemence that Charles had come with him. The metal soup cans on their shelves began to rattle. 

“Excuse me sir, are you well?” A stout, middle-aged woman touched his elbow, concern filling her warm brown eyes. He recognized her vaguely as a friend of Zuzana’s. “You’re looking very pale.” 

Erik opened and closed his mouth, struggling for an adequate response. “I’m afraid I’m not,” he said finally, his voice sounding strange to his own ears. “I am having a... A senior moment.” 

The woman gave his arm a squeeze. “Let’s get you some sugar,” she advised, and tilted her chin towards the cabinet of pastries. “You don’t have to talk about it, but you can if you like. We’ve got to watch out for our own kind, hm?” 

The twinkle of her smile matched the Magen David ‘round her throat. He allowed the woman to purchase him a chocolate pączek. They sat at a picnic table outside the shop, not talking, simply being present. 

The chocolate saturated richly on his tongue. Sugar had been harshly rationed during wartime, and all chocolate was forbidden to Jews. To eat it so casually now only lent a taste of surreality to his fractured psyche. 

“I am too old,” Erik told the woman, who was tossing breadcrumbs to sparrows. 

She laughed brightly, like he’d just made a grand joke. “We all feel that way.” 

“I don’t know how to go on being what I am. I don’t know who I am anymore.” 

“Does anyone? It’s baby steps all the way to the finish line. It’s always impossible until it’s done.” 

Erik nodded, processing slowly, and took another bite of his pączek. 

* * *

**Day 428**

Charles’s sighs were becoming increasingly dramatic and pointed, and Erik was annoyed. 

“I’ll play with you _in a moment!”_ he huffed from the kitchen, planting flour-covered hands on his hips. “I’m busy right now.” 

“It’s my birthday! You should be paying attention to me!”

“It is _not_ your birthday, you tall child! Your birthday was two days ago which, if you’ll recall, is why I spent six hours at the park with you looking at Fluffy Wigglers and Great Crested Whatsits and Trumpet Peckers.” 

Charles made a valiant effort to hold his laughter in, but failed spectacularly. His wheezing cackle destroyed the house of cards he’d been setting up since he’d grown bored of playing Solitaire at the kitchen table. _“Trumpet_ Pe—!” 

His snickering was cut short by a quiet, chiming ring from the desktop computer he’d set up in the corner of the room in place of a television. Perking up considerably, Charles eagerly wheeled his chair from the table to the desk to answer the call. 

“Happy birthday, Charles!” Ororo sang warmly from the computer screen. Usually she phoned him for their weekly calls, but perhaps for the special occasion she’d decided to use video chat instead. Erik was grateful his position in the kitchen kept him from the camera’s line of sight. 

“See?!” Charles crowed, glancing triumphantly over his shoulder at Erik. “A birthday is more than just the one day. I can celebrate all week if I like!” 

_You’d have a party every day of July if I let you._

**What’s so wrong with that?**

To Ororo Charles said, “Erik and I celebrated by birdwatching.” 

Her smile was thin; strained. Erik could see it even from this distance. After all this time, the fact that her boss and friend was living with the “enemy” still made her uncomfortable. Who could blame her? “Oh, that’s nice. What are you doing today?” 

“Erik _promised_ we’d play a game of some sort, but he’s been a bore all day.” 

“I haven’t been a _bore._ I’m doing chores. I’m baking more bread because _someone_ ate an entire loaf in two days, and complains when all we have is store-bought! If you want me to play with you so badly, you might consider helping me.” 

“But I’m not allowed to do anything!” To Ororo, Charles explained, “When I wash the dishes, he complains I don’t clean them thoroughly. When I fold laundry, he says it’s too wrinkly. All he does is criticize. Some people can’t be pleased.” 

Her expression was distinctly bemused. “Charles, aren’t you pulling your weight at all? Erik isn’t your servant.” 

Erik knew the queen didn’t particularly want to speak to him, but he couldn’t resist. “He certainly is not! He’s a spoiled aristocrat used to others doing all his chores for him.” 

Charles pouted. “Well, perhaps if you didn’t look so nice in an apron...” 

“Oh, barf. There are minors present, dawg!” 

This complaint came from a youthful voice just offscreen. After searching his memory, Erik placed it as Todd Tolanski; the Toad in the Brotherhood that no longer belonged to him. The last time Erik had seen him, he’d been trembling by the ruins of his destroyed house, his webbed hands soaked with the Avalanche’s blood, staring Erik down with fury in those bulbous golden eyes. 

Funny, wasn’t it, how shame felt like a physical weight falling upon him, so heavy it might crush him to the floor? 

“Ah. I see you have guests?” Charles asked, tone light. He’d probably caught a telepathic whiff of Erik’s abrupt despair. 

Ororo groaned. “You have no idea. This mansion has been a summer camp for mutant trainees ever since you re-hired Logan. The Danger Room is running night and day, and they’re eating us out of house and home. _Speaking_ of which, I’m going to need a budget increase for groceries, first aid, and explosives.” 

“Why explosives?” 

Erik tuned the two out as he considered the implications. He knew Charles had paid for a custom house to be built for Logan and his adopted children, and Erik’s children, as well. He knew this, because they’d set up a secret payment plan between them. At the end of the day, Logan’s new house was coming out of Erik’s pocket, not Charles’s. Since Erik had been the one to destroy the first home, it was only fair. 

Because he knew that, he also knew that the house had finished being built a few months prior, and the family had all moved in comfortably. They no longer lived at Xavier’s mansion. But if they were still spending a lot of time there, was it possible that one or both of his twins was standing nearby right now, eavesdropping on the conversation, just as Erik was? 

The thought made Erik’s heart pound. He wanted to talk to them. He wanted to _see_ them! He— 

“How is the Brotherhood?” Charles asked, ever-casual, twirling a pen idly between his fingers. “Mr. Tolanski sounds like he’s alive and well.” 

“I’m fine.” 

“Excellent. And the rest?” 

“Lanceman’s starting his new job today. Somethin’ about a lumber yard? Pops is freaking out, but I think he’s happy.” 

The Avalanche recovered enough to work a labor-intensive job with the protective Wolverine’s blessing? It was a relief to hear, but it didn’t alleviate Erik’s guilt. 

“What about Mr. Dukes?” 

“Freddie-bear’s taking summer classes ‘cuz he missed a lot of school before movin’ to New York.” 

_Charles..._

**I know, old friend.** “And our lovely twins?” 

Despite Charles’s casual tone, Erik didn’t think he was imagining the way Toad hesitated before answering the question. “They’re okay. Trobro’s out of state with pops this weekend.” 

“Why is that?” 

“He’s lookin’ at his new school.” 

Pietro would have just graduated high school. So he was going to University in the fall? Out of town? Which school had he selected? What was he interested in studying? Was this what he wanted, or had he been rejected from his dream school? Erik could hardly believe that to be the case. His son was exceptional. Any school would be blessed to have him... 

... He tried not to think about another man taking his son to look around a campus. He tried not to let the envy curdle his heart. 

“Hey, uh. I gotta go.” Toad attempted to inch offscreen, allowing Ororo to resume her conversation with Charles front and center. A suspicion overtook Erik. 

“Wanda?” Abandoning his bread, Erik came around the kitchen island to approach Charles, hands still coated in flour. “Are you there, tygrysku?” He could just imagine his daughter standing nearby, listening to the conversation with her guileless blue eyes narrowed, flinching at the sound of Erik’s voice. He tried to smooth his own voice; to sound gentle, warm. 

Ororo glanced nervously offscreen to where Toad had disappeared, and Erik’s suspicions were confirmed. His daughter was there; _right there._ When would he ever get a better opportunity to speak with her? 

**Erik, perhaps this isn’t wise...**

Erik ignored the warning, pressing close to Charles’s side to look at the screen, piercing straight into the shadows behind Ororo. “Wanda,” he said, enunciating slowly and clearly. “Kocham Cię. Wybacz?” 

There was a pause like a held breath, then an enraged, hair-raising shriek. A violent surge of crimson and cerulean flame overtook the screen, and then their connection died. 

* * *

**Day 490**

Ewa still had that baby smell when Erik nuzzled her scalp and inhaled, though she was now fifteen months old. Erik balanced her on his hip as she drained a sippy-cup of apple juice. She watched in fascination as her mother trimmed her sister’s hair at the kitchen sink.

“Ewa,” Erik said, and earned the child’s patented serious frown. “Where’s your nose?” 

She pointed. He smiled. 

“Good. Where’s _my_ nose?” 

She pointed again, nearly putting his eye out. 

“Where is Sandra?” 

The toddler pointed to her sister, sitting in the kitchen chair, tipped back under her mother’s arms. Then, growing bored with this game, she squirmed and fussed in Erik’s hold. 

“Just a moment,” Zuzana said, her silver scissors flashing in the sunlight from the window above the sink. “Almost done... There!” 

Satisfied with her daughter’s haircut, Zuzana sat back and helped Sandra up, fluffing her daughter’s dirty-blonde locks with her fingers. She’d meant to cut the girl’s hair before school began, but had been too busy between taking care of the orchard and running after a toddler. 

Sandra smiled when Zuzana took her face in hand, squishing her cheeks and brushing their noses in maternal affection. “You look beautiful, sweetheart.” 

“You do too, mama. Can I go play with Chuck now? He’s got books with pictures of birds we’re gonna look at.” 

Zuzana nodded and walked her daughter to the door, sending her off on the mile-long path down to the Xavier-Lehnsherr’s barn. 

“Ma.” Ewa held her arms out to her mother, and Erik passed her over, watching as Zuzana carefully tucked a dishtowel around her toddler’s chubby neck. 

“My mother’s name was Ewa,” Erik said unexpectedly, taking the toddler’s sippy-cup to the fridge to refill with a juice-water mix. “People called her ‘Evie.’” In Polish, the ‘w’ and ‘v’ were often interchangeable. 

“Isn’t that funny!” Zuzana sat Ewa on the edge of the sink, making sure she was balanced. Erik handed the baby her cup, a cracker, and a toy monkey to occupy her while her mother trimmed the duck-fluff at her nape. “What was she like?” 

“Hmm...” Erik considered. Evie Lehnsherr... a nazi had shot her in the forehead when he was not yet fourteen. It was not the first death he’d witnessed, but it was one of the hardest to avoid thinking about. Erik had taken great pleasure granting her murderer the slow, painful death he deserved, but no matter how sweetly Shaw screamed, it hadn’t brought Evie back. 

None of this, of course, was appropriate to tell Zuzana. 

“She was very refined. Very elegant,” he said slowly, thinking back to her pearl-drop earrings, to the dances she and Jakob had attended. Remembering the smell of her perfume when she smoothed blankets over him and kissed his forehead. “Very spiritual.” 

“She sounds lovely.” Zuzana raised a spray bottle and misted the back of her daughter’s head with water, using a tiny comb to smooth the locks. Ewa gummed her cracker, crumbs tumbling down the bib of her yellow overalls. 

“She was. She’s been gone for so long, yet I think of her often.” 

He hadn’t meant to confess this. What a pathetic thing to say! He was an old man, for crying out loud... 

But Zuzana was looking at him with sympathy and understanding; not judgment. 

“It never goes away, does it?” she asked, her freckles prominent in the late afternoon sunlight. “I lost my big sister to breast cancer almost a decade ago. It still hurts.” 

“I’m sorry for your loss.” He meant it. Not so long ago, he wouldn’t have been able to feel this level of empathy. He’d been defrosting rather a lot, lately. It made him feel human, strange and frightening as that was to admit. 

“Yes, so am I.” Zuzana gave a small smile that held more sadness than joy, combing through Ewa’s hair one last time before carrying her to a blanket on the floor, settling her down with her toys and her board-books. “Your turn, Erik. Sit.” 

Erik blinked, surprised when Zuzana gestured to the chair Sandra had vacated. “You’re cutting my hair?” 

“You need it. Don’t you want Charles to think you’re handsome? It’ll only take a minute.” 

To illustrate how quick the process would be, she filled her kettle at the sink and set it on the stovetop to warm. When she smiled, he saw the little gap between her front teeth. Charming thing. Magda would have adored her. 

Erik couldn’t help it; he laughed. “Very well. You win.” 

He undid the first few buttons of his shirt and tucked Sandra’s abandoned bath-towel ‘round his neck, then sat in the chair. He was so tall that he had to scoot forward and slouch to recline over the sink, closing his eyes when Zuzana finger-combed his hair out. 

“You have such thick hair,” she observed. “Very unusual for—” 

“An old fart?” 

“A _distinguished gentleman.”_

Erik laughed again. He felt the molecular hum of her metal scissors through his bloodstream. It wasn’t an unpleasant sensation. He relaxed as she worked, the breeze through the windscreen cooling his face. Soon, it would be Autumn again. It would be time to harvest all the squash he’d planted; the zucchini and butternuts and pumpkins... 

Zuzana lightly pressed the top of his head, tilting it to the side. Her scissors clipped. Snippets of silvery hair dropped into the sink atop Sandra’s darker and Ewa’s lighter locks. 

Erik squinted when she twisted the sink faucet to wet the top of his head, watching through his eyelashes as Ewa toddled through the kitchen with her monkey clenched tight in one fist. In the hissing kettle, he heard water bubble. 

_The kettle..._

Erik sat up with a gasp, shoving Zuzana away. As she stumbled, he felt her scissors nick his ear. 

Ewa stood on tiptoe at the stove, reaching for the handle of the kettle, hellbent — in the way of all toddlers to always find trouble — to pour the hot pot and its boiling contents onto herself. 

“Wanda, no!” Erik barked, hands outstretched, and used his powers to seize her by the metal buckles of her overalls. The child flew eight feet across the room, right into his chest. He snapped his arms tight around her. 

Zuzana gaped at him, eyes enormous, mouth dropped wide, hands hanging uselessly at her sides. His cut ear dribbled blood down his neck. In his arms, Ewa fussed and cried. 

Erik stood, handed the child to her mother, and stepped out the door. 

* * *

**Day 496**

She found him sitting outside the barn, cold enough to warrant a blanket, though he hadn’t bothered wearing shoes over his socks. He noticed, with no surprise, that she hadn’t brought either of her children with her.

“Hi, Erik.” Zuzana plucked at a frayed thread on her sweater’s sleeve. 

He tipped his chin in acknowledgement. “Want to sit with me? You can grab a chair.” 

She did just that, pushing open his unlocked front door and stepping inside just long enough to pull a second chair from the kitchen table, carrying it outside to set it close — but not too close — to where Erik sat. He wondered if she’d been a dancer before she had children. Her movements were graceful in a way that reminded him of his son. 

“Is Charles asleep already?” Zuzana asked, indicating the darkened barn behind them. 

“Yes. He dislikes days like today, when the temperature fluctuates a lot. It makes his bones ache.” He’d massaged Charles’s back again, but it only helped so much. 

She gestured towards the bandage on his ear, from where she’d sliced him with her scissors. “And that?” 

“Just a scratch. No harm done.” 

Zuzana nodded. They sat in silence, looking out onto the scrubby property that must, at one point, have been a fruitful farm. Why had its original owners put the place up for rent? Had it been too expensive to keep? Had the soil turned sour? Specks of light — fireflies — chased each other in winding, rising circles as grasshoppers sang a dirge. 

“Who’s watching the girls?” Erik asked. 

“My aunt.” 

Silence fell again. Erik wondered if she meant him to offer a drink. He wondered if he should expect the townspeople to arrive with torches and pitchforks. He would kill to ensure Charles’s safety, but felt almost too tired to consider a fight. It exhausted him; a bone-deep weariness that no sleep could satisfy. 

“I know who you are,” Zuzana said, and Erik shut his eyes tight. 

“A mutant?” he offered, and tried not to let his sarcasm bite. It’d been so long since he’d felt anything but raw contempt for a human, but he liked Zuzana. 

“You are Magneto.” 

Ah. So she _could_ still surprise him. “Sometimes I forget I’m famous.” 

“Infamous, more like. You’re a terrorist.” 

So why wasn’t she running, then? Screaming? Grabbing stakes and garlic and holy water to keep her children safe from the monster under the bed? 

“I prefer to go by ‘Erik’ these days.” 

“That’s all you have to say for yourself?! I know what you do to _my kind.”_

Erik opened his eyes again and turned his head to see her staring at him, a furrow in her brow like she was working out a difficult puzzle. Miracle of miracles, there was no fear in her eyes. 

“I’m old, Zuzana,” he sighed, and heard the weariness in his own voice. “I am old, and I am exhausted, and I have a broken heart. I set to save the world, and only made it worse. My fighting days are over.” 

The wind blew a puff of sandy blonde hair into Zuzana’s eyes. Erik reached to push it back, and she took his arm in both of her hands, turning it over. He watched blankly as she worked open the buttons of his sleeve, stopping for a long moment on the thick red scars Logan had left behind. 

“What you’re seeking is a bit higher than that,” he suggested, and she frowned, but continued to unbutton until she found the ink. The mark of a prisoner. 

Oh, he could have had it removed if he’d desired, or tattooed over it with something more pleasing. Though tattoos were verboten in Jewish culture, there wasn’t a single Jew out there who would judge him for it. 

But he hadn’t wanted to, had he? He’d wanted to carry it with him; a living reminder of all he’d seen, all that he’d lost. Those inches of marked flesh were his flag of vengeance upon the world. It was a battle cry. A call for war. A wound that time could not heal. 

Zuzana stared at the numbers for a long, long time. He was thankful when she didn’t touch them, but only re-buttoned his shirt with nimble fingers used to dressing small children. 

“My grandparents...” she began, but didn’t finish. She didn’t have to. There wasn’t a Jew in Poland who didn’t bear the scar of Shoah, even all these generations later. “How _old_ are you?” she asked instead, and his smile was bitter and brittle as he retrieved his arm and held it in his lap. 

_“Too_ old, I’m afraid. I’m living on stolen time. Sometimes I think that was a mistake.” 

“Who is Wanda?” 

Oh, he’d hoped she hadn’t registered that little slip in her kitchen. He’d already berated himself a dozen times over for referring to Ewa by that name. 

“Wanda is my daughter, and she hates me profoundly. I can’t blame her. I have wronged and failed her in every way possible.” 

“How old is she?” 

“Eighteen; same as her brother. Twins.” 

“It sounds as though you still care for them.” 

“I do. I’m only now realizing the depth of my cruelties, the breadth of my mistakes. I suspect I’ll be paying for it for the rest of my days.” 

“Is there no chance at forgiveness?” 

What was this, a therapy session? He’d expected an attack, not an interview. “I don’t know.” 

“And that scares you?” 

At this, he turned and met her wide brown eyes. He gave her a small, self-depreciating smile. She was trying so desperately to understand, but could she ever? “Child, I am _terrified.”_

* * *

**Day 500**

The garden was like nothing Erik had ever seen before. 

It was stunning; that went without question. Awesome, in that he was struck dumb with awe just looking around the place. It bloomed with every color of the rainbow and some he had no words for, and so verdant it was like the saturation of the world had been cranked up to the max. 

It extended as far as the eye could see; trees ancient and enormous; buds green and new, wild and entirely without path, yet with an inviting glow, the very roses seeming to whisper, _‘you are welcome here... For now.’_ It was warm as any living thing and seemed to breathe alongside him, though it was so flooded with oxygen that just inhaling made Erik feel dizzy; giddy, even. 

Beautiful, it may be, but it was far from perfect. As Erik wandered — he found that he was barefoot, but the fallen needles and pine-cones and thorns did not prick his feet, nor did they snag the blue-striped tallit he wore — he instinctively pinched off overgrown buds, removed dead branches, tore strangling vines off a choking olive tree so it could again pull nutrients from the rich soil. Ladybirds swarmed by the thousands, coating every flat surface like bold bloodspatter. 

_I am the gardener,_ Erik realized, though that wasn’t quite right. A garden implied something tame controlled by humans. He suspected that if this powerful place did not want him here, it would be a dangerous place to be... He was a guest; a tender; never an owner. There was no owning something as fierce as this — it would be like owning the moon, or an ocean, or...

From behind an oak stepped a doe, deceivingly fragile and wide-eyed. At her dainty hooves crouched two fawns, their white-speckled rumps belying their youth. The mother was almost as beautiful as the garden itself; tall enough to reach Erik’s waist with legs long and graceful. Her tan hide was almost ruddy in the leaf-dappled sunlight, and the white markings around her planet-sized eyes, her ink-stain off a nose, lent an expression of gentle surprise. 

“Dzień dobry,” Erik greeted cautiously. There was an intelligence about the animal Erik couldn’t quite explain, but he suspected she understood him. He crouched and offered a hand to sniff, then recoiled. There was blood on his hands, soaking palms and fingers, dripping like acid into the dirt below. He hid them behind his back, but it was too late. The doe had seen. She knew he’d killed her kind before. 

“I’m so sorry,” Erik apologized, feeling foolish to continue this one-sided conversation as she pulled away, nudging her children as if to tell them this man was not so safe after all. “I know I was wrong to do it. I was cruel and selfish. Can you ever forgive me?” 

The deer paused, seeming to consider his words. She came no closer, but at least had stopped retreating. Erik sagged in relief. 

The little ones stuck close to their mother, but watched Erik in wary fascination. When he held a hand out to them, first wiping the blood away on the grass, the male flinched, and the female stood her ground, prepared to fight. Erik sighed and dropped his hand. 

When Erik again looked at the doe, he cried out and fell in the dirt, eyes huge and jaw falling. The doe was no longer a deer, but a woman perched primly on the oak’s roots, legs crossed and long skirts trailing. He knew without having to look that she had a pack of cigarettes tucked somewhere in her cleavage; he caught a whiff of her familiar cherry-tobacco scent. 

She cocked her head, and a curl of bushy dark hair escaped the scarf she’d tied ‘round her head. He’d have known that smile anywhere; at the beginning or end of the world. 

“Magda!” 

“Sastipe!” she crowed, and looked smug. There always was a devil in her smile, especially when she stumped her boyfriend with Romani when he’d mastered so many other languages. “Did I get you?” 

“You and your jokes. You would’ve gotten along with Pietro. He is mischievous, too.” 

“Ah, yes. I miss my boy. I miss all of you.” She looked wistful, but only for a moment. She had such a strong spirit; an enduring attitude. Even death couldn’t keep her down long. 

“I miss you, too,” Erik confessed, and wondered why on earth it had taken him so long to admit it. He had missed her since he’d heard her take her final breath. What good had it done anyone to pretend otherwise; to act like his heart had not been fissured by the loss? If he didn’t tell her now, he may never get another chance. “I loved you then. I love you now. I miss you every day.” 

Magda’s dark eyes, so similar to those of the doe she’d pretended to be, warmed, and she stretched out a hand towards her partner. Erik took it without a second’s thought, squeezing her fingers gently. They felt real as could be in his grip, though he now knew this had to be a dream. 

“You’ve changed,” Magda informed him. “And they say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks!” 

“Have I really?” 

“Sure. You’ve been around long enough to know life’s a bitch who keeps on steamrolling you until you’re dead in the mud. Everything that happens to you will change you, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.” 

“But have I changed for the better?” 

Magda turned to look at her little fawns, nuzzling each other in a patch of sunshine. Under Erik’s gaze, the female bristled, lowering her head and glowering her hostility. Prey animal or not, he had no doubt she’d do serious damage if he tried to approach. 

“You tell me,” she replied enigmatically. 

* * *

**Day 505**

“I’m afraid of something,” Erik confessed to Charles. They’d just set up the first fire in the grate of the season, as there’d been a chill in the air when they woke that morning, and Charles’s old bones protested it violently. 

He felt much better now, in his pajamas and a hat, reclining on the old sofa with his head on Erik’s chest. He held a book, and Erik held a different one, and for an hour or more, the only sounds in the room had been crackling flames and pages turning. 

“What are you afraid of?” 

“What life will be like when we get home.” 

For a moment, Charles felt confused. They were home, weren’t they? They were wearing pajamas and fuzzy socks and reader glasses, drinking tea, and sharing a bowl of cherries. It didn’t get much more homey than that. 

But no. He saw in Erik’s mind that the other mutant was thinking of somewhere far away; a city polluted with light and noise and smog. 

“I didn’t know you wanted to go back already.” 

“You sound disappointed.” 

Charles considered. He _was_ disappointed, he supposed, but not surprised. Still, it made his heart sink. Erik nudged his side. “What are you thinking?” 

“Can’t you tell?” 

Erik wasn’t a telepath, but that didn’t matter when it was between them. Erik closed his eyes and held Charles close, thinking his thoughts and feeling his feelings. 

“Ah,” Erik nodded. “Yes; that’s what I’d feared, too.” 

**Will you still love me, out there in the real world?**

Erik seemed to have an easier time answering this question than the previous one. _Loving you is as effortless as it is inevitable. I’ve done it for most of my life. I cannot stop now._

To this, Charles could only sigh. Yes, he supposed he and Erik had always loved one another. That didn’t mean things would stay like this; this truce, this warmth. Out in the “real” world, it was so easy to get turned around and go for one another’s throats. Could Erik guarantee that wouldn’t happen; promise not to harden his heart and become cold as ice again? 

_No. You know I can’t. But I can promise to try._

“What’s worth leaving this paradise for?” 

“My children.” 

Charles shut his eyes tight and exhaled a shuddery, frustrated sigh. That was an unfair card for Erik to play. How could Charles hope to combat it?! 

_For one so willing to uproot our lives and move to another country, you are remarkably resistant to change._

**I don’t want to lose you again.**

_I don’t think you will. You knew we couldn’t stay here forever. We may be old, but there is still work to be done, old friend. Have some faith in me._

Erik dropped a kiss onto Charles’s head. Charles leaned into it, sighing, setting his book aside to rub his eyes. Light from the fire cast dancing shadows over them both. “I don’t know how to put this delicately, Erik, but it’s very possible your children will want nothing to do with you.” 

“I know that. It would be exactly what I deserve. But I still must try. Even if they never forgive me, I cannot bear to die with them thinking their father doesn’t love them. That I didn’t _try_ to make things better, in the end.” 

He sounded determined. And when Erik was determined, things would happen, one way or another. Charles could either go with him, or be left behind. 

He sighed again. Erik was right. He still had work waiting for him back home. He could not put it off forever. “On one condition.” 

Erik kissed his head again. “Name it, kochanie.” 

“You will live with me. I’ll give you your own rooms, and you may request privacy. But you will live in my home.” 

Erik fell very still underneath him. “While that is a kind offer, I cannot see how I’d be welcome. I’m not the most popular of houseguests among your company.” 

“You’d be _welcome_ because it’s my home they live in. If they have any objections, they’re free to leave.” 

Charles could be stubborn, too. Brutally so. Erik’s sigh was a long, defeated thing. “I thank you for your generosity.” 

The two men sat quiet again. Charles finished his mug of tea. Erik took the empty vessel from his hands and set it aside with a small, ceramic clink. Charles squirmed to get more comfortable, and Erik looped an easy arm ‘round his shoulders. 

“Not today, though,” Charles clarified, and tried not to sound too anxious about the prospect. “We’ve got time, right?” 

Though he couldn’t see Erik’s face, Charles knew his voice well enough to guess when he was smiling. “No, Charles. Not today. Perhaps in the new year. We’ve things to settle here first.” 

Charles nodded, and reached to take Erik’s hand. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not this year, even, but soon they would rejoin the world. For now, there were be books to read, and kisses to give, and hands to hold. Charles could accept that. 

__

_~ fin ~_


End file.
